I installed Mac OS X, version 10.6 yesterday, just after I got home from work.
The install was flawless, especially given that my daughter blew a breaker elsewhere in the house while overloading a circuit with both the tea kettle and the vacuum cleaner. I was in the bathroom at the time as the lights went out, and my heart nearly froze in my chest (having a power failure in the middle of an OS update is not good). We shared a meal with a wonderful couple from our church, and their equally wonderful grandchild, who got along splendidly with our younger ones.
All in all the night was great, we ended the visit in prayer, our guests left, and the children were given to reading until bedtime. I on the other hand was given to making sure the "Snow Leopard" install was as tweaked as humanly possible.
After setting up one of the new screen savers, I looked into my network preferences and noticed that the update had not removed two virtual network adapters that "Parallels" had installed when I installed a demo after first moving to a Mac. That annoyed me, so I tried (once again) to delete them. and once again they were removed from my network list, but I suspected that they would be there again next time I rebooted the computer. To Test my theory, I rebooted, and sure as sunshine, there they were again. I had removed the program long ago, but these two stubs remained, and since they were sowing up as "connected" I was more than a little annoyed to have them chewing up resources. So I began a near fruitless search on how to rid myself of them. It seemed from the Parallels software forums that this was a very, very common problem, and the solution given was a very, very, useless solution, for it did not solve the problem, and many people said as much, and their observations were apparently left unanswered.
After much snooping, I found the file where the network configurations were stored, and I went in using "VI" (a unix text editor I hadn't used in a decade or more) and removed the offending entries. That worked on next boot - but for some reason my wireless connection through my Mac Mini's Airport card now had an amber colored icon to its left rather than the normative green one. We all know how traffic lights work - red means the connection is broken, green means it is fine, but amber meant that something was working, but some other thing was not. So I looked into it and discovered that my iphone could no longer talk to my Mac Mini via the Mac's wireless Airport card.
Now, previously I had a profoundly fruitless time trying to get my iPhone talking to my wireless router, given that for some reason, one day I was suddenly no longer able to see the admin page on my router. I was planning on getting a new router when I realized my Mac Mini came with an Airport Wireless adapter card built in. So I configured it instead, and managed to connect wirelessly to it via my iPhone. Which was where I had left it.
So when the changes I made to the under belly of the OS suddenly hindered my wireless set up - it was not a good thing, nor an easily rendered fix. I am quite familiar with the Windows™ paradigm, but am still a Mac newbie - and this non-standard set up was pretty much than my meagre chops could handle right out of the box, as it were. So I was spending a great deal of time using the internet to inform myself enough to affect a positive outcome.
I was successful, but not until about an hour before I was supposed to get up for work. Somewhere in my mono-focused effort the clock ticked on - and though I was yawning often, and glancing up, and even pondering in little snatches of sobriety, the consequences of my folly, yet I was convinced I could solve the problem before my wife ever had an opportunity to tell me her email wasn't working.
I went down to bed then, and made a rather foolish and sinful decision. I decided that I would call in sick today.
So instead of a mere hour's rest, I slept for a few hours, and rose this a.m. only to call in and let my supervisor know that I was not going to make it in today. But somewhere in between dragging myself out of bed, and holding the phone in my hand, the Holy Spirit reminded me that this would grieve Him. I had one of those struggles in the flesh that someone who has been in the Lord as long as I have, ought not to have any more - but at the end of it, I knew I would be going in, and not making that phone call.
Here is where the point that I began this post about comes to the fore front. As I surrendered to the will of the Lord, I began to pray, thanking the Lord for the victory, but some part of me actually felt that because this was a particularly difficult struggle, that God ought to be thankful that I chose to obey Him rather than myself in the matter. Can you believe that? Right on the heels of such grace, I had the smug wherewithal to imagine that I deserved a reward for my great act of faith, and this thought penetrated even my prayer of thanks.
How gently the truth came to me as this through lingered for a moment - I was aware of the wrongness of it at once - and immediately recalled where the Lord tells the parable of the servant who works all day in the fields, then comes into his master's home, and is made to serve him a mean and in doing so has done nothing worthy of praise - for he is a servant, and when he performs what his role requires, it is not something to praise him over, but is instead the barest minimum that is expected in a servant.
What a profound fool I am sometimes! To waste all night on some folly that could have waited, to give into the weakness of my flesh before I lay myself down to rest, planning on sin in the morning, and then, when grace finds me the next day, I puff myself up thinking that I am worthy of some kind of honour having done the very least of what is expected of me - and that not in my own strength, but in the strength of my Lord's grace which came on the wings of His conviction!
Listen: My God didn't whisper in my ear this morning audibly, but He was with me, patiently leading me out of sin, and restoring me - even the word of God says: He shall save His people from their sin. Ask me how I know I am saved, and I will tell you - I know I am saved because I see it each day - the Holy Spirit witnesses to my spirit that I am His child. Not always with words of comfort, but often with chastisement, with conviction, and then in the wake of obedience - with a profound joy in the glory of God and His righteousness that is found in me only because He has left me a Comforter - One who empowers my obedience.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him you creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly host
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Spirit).
Amen.Labels: Holy Spirit, obedience |
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