Logging In

Have you ever tried to find a complicated answer to what turns out to be a very simple problem? Recently I did just that. I was trying to make a Skype call from my laptop but it wouldn’t let me do it. After several attempts, including shutting down and restarting the computer, I decided to uninstall and reinstall Skype. I didn’t really know what I was doing and was relieved when Skype popped back up on the screen again. Yet, still I couldn’t make the call, so I went through uninstalling and reinstalling all over again. Still, no joy! I googled the problem, and someone suggested looking at my firewall settings. By now I was really out of my depth! But I followed the instructions, changed a setting and, feeling quite pleased with myself, thought … This is it! It will surely work now! But no! I still couldn’t connect to the outside world! In frustration, I gave up.

A few hours later I decided to have another look … the answer was suddenly glaringly obvious … I wasn’t logged in to Skype!! Thankfully, my problem was solved and I could just laugh at myself (... something I couldn’t have easily done a few years ago.) But I saw a parallel - how for many years I looked all over the place for complicated answers, not just when the computer wouldn’t work, but with the deeper problems and issues of my life, and wasted a lot of time and energy – trying to work it out intellectually or running to other people or trying to bury the problems altogether under a plethora of coping mechanisms … until eventually God brought me to the place of recognising that the answer I needed was very simple. I just needed to ‘login’ with Him - my Father God! For He has the answers to every problem that could possibly assail us … in fact His love is the answer, no matter what we’re struggling with. It wasn’t that my problems suddenly magically disappeared when I reached out to Him, but allowing His love into the place of pain and struggle, bit by bit has brought His peace and released me and continues to release me into true freedom from the issues that once held me in captivity.

But I had to learn along the way that just as it doesn’t work to login to a computer programme with the wrong details, I couldn’t come to God in falsehood, pretending to be someone I wasn’t. It just didn’t work! He’s a God of truth and I couldn’t come to Him in super-spirituality or false humility or under a cloak of self-pity. But when, by His grace, I came in honesty and true humility – as the old chorus says ‘just as I am’ – the connection was made to Him and the divine work of exchange, made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross, could begin. I could confess and repent and He could forgive. I could give Him my hopelessness and despair, and He could give me hope. I could give Him my pain, and He could give me His healing. I could mourn my losses, and He could give me His joy. Amazing God!

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for looking for my own answers. Please help me to come to You in honesty and humility, and as I come to You just as I am, please give me the courage to keep that communication channel with You open, and to allow You to do Your divine work of exchange in my life. Amen.