Computers

I remember a day in the mid 1990s, when a lady stood up in church to tell us about an incident that had happened a few days earlier. Her son was about 12 and was learning simple computer programming at school. Those were the very early days of the Internet, when there wasn't much online and it was well before the time when you could "Google" something you didn't know, as you can now.

This lady's son had been given some homework for his computing class. He had to create a picture of a 3D cube, and was due to hand it in the next morning. He couldn't do it and had asked his mum for help. Although she was a well educated woman, on this occasion she couldn't help at all, having never learned anything about computers. She did pray with him, for the Lord's help and also tried to help him herself, but she knew less than he did, so eventually she had to leave him to struggle on alone. She found that upsetting, and continued to pray, as that was all she could do.

Unfortunately after a couple of hours, the boy had got nowhere and it was now his bed time. The mother said he would have to leave it and reluctantly he agreed to go to bed. He was upset that he didn't have anything to hand in to the teacher, so his mum prayed with him for the Lord to give him peace and that all would be fine.

In the morning, the boy turned on the computer to retrieve his disc, and shouted with amazement - there, saved on his disc was a perfect cube! It had not been there last night, but now it was there! Somehow it had appeared overnight!

As the woman said to us, it had never occurred to her that God might understand computers! But of course, as today's verse says, nothing is too hard for God, not even computers! He knows all about everything, including machines, and is perfectly capable of altering them if He wants to.

I don't suppose God often does children's homework for them. But on this occasion He did, and it certainly boosted the faith of both child and parent, not to mention the rest of the church that day.

Is there something you are struggling with at the moment, which you assume God would not be able to help you with? Or which you assume God would not help you with even if He could help? Yet you would certainly ask another person if they had the skills, just as that lad would have asked another adult if there was someone available with computer skills.

We can be so encouraged by today's verse - Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit. Why not ask God for help right now, then be patient and give Him time to act on your behalf. There is nothing He does not understand. He even understands how you are feeling.

Prayer: thank You, Father God, for Your amazing power and limitless knowledge. Thank You that You love us so much that You take notice of our prayers and our problems. Today I bring You my problem, which is …