Unshackled Moments ~ February 5 ~ Listening To Wisdom

Yesterday's Unshackled Moment theme was illustrated by the slow process of my overloaded computer that was in desperate need of being backed up and then to have files deleted to free up memory. I bought the backup and freed up over half the memory on the computer yesterday, and am happy to say that the computer is running much more efficiently now. I also dropped off the damaged backup at the computer repair shop that I use both personally and for the ministry computers. I got a call this morning from them.

The good news is that eventually I will be able to get the documents and photographs that are important to Leah and I from that backup. The bad news is that it will be a long time as we put back a few dollars here and there and cash in our change over what will probably be a few years. There's nothing that we need enough right now to put ourselves in the financial bind that the $750 to over a $1000 recovery cost would put us in. It's important enough to get the data recovered to save and wait, but not worth not eating over. The sad thing is that my father suggested some time back that we do what he and my mom do and get cloud storage in addition to the physical backup. Had I listened, we would simply be able to pull the files from the cloud and have them again today.

Sometimes life happens. Things go wrong. It's not good to live in worry and fear, and you can't prepare for everything. But God puts people in our lives that can offer wisdom and advice about the way we live and handle our lives. This can be as simple a thing as what should be common sense that having all your files on one backup device is insufficient because the backup isn't backed up and if something happens you could lose everything. Or it could be advice like what I listened to that said, yes it's good to work hard to take care of your responsibilities and not use excuses to bail out of difficult times, but that if I continued to do the physically damaging labor that I had been doing the past year I could end up crippled and unable to work at all.

Sometimes the advice has a cost of swallowing pride and accepting help or that someone might see what I need to do better than I, sometimes the cost may be paying something now that in the long run is cheaper than the cost could be (like having insurance), sometimes it may mean letting go of some things I want in order to protect myself and my family from things I want less. But no matter the cost, the wisdom of those God puts in our lives to help us, and the wisdom found in His Word can make recovery possible or easier when the rains come and the wind blows. Jesus is the cornerstone of our foundation that holds our life together and wisdom is one of the blocks that build on Him.

Let us be more willing to listen to the wisdom of others, to adjust our lives into the stronger and safer structure that wisdom can provide.

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