God

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The Neediest One In The Family May Be You

It takes a lot of wisdom to deal with the neediest one in the house … and someone can always claim that title.

the neediest one in the the family may be you

When two people get married, the title of “neediest” switches between the couple depending on the situation. 

But when that couple has their first child, that child becomes the neediest person in the family. Period. And that position doesn’t change until another little one enters the family. Then, of course, the new child becomes the neediest. 

There are the diapers, clean ups, feedings – it really doesn’t stop. Just making sure you have everything in the “go bag” is exhausting. 

Babies are dependent on their parents for everything … or, if you’re lucky, on the grandparents sometimes. 

Kids are needy. That’s a fact.

Children pretty much trade needy positions back and forth throughout their growing years.

Even when you reach the stage that they are no longer under your roof, that doesn’t mean one of them won’t be the neediest – one of them will. It just looks a little different and costs more … just kidding, well, maybe I’m not. 

Lily and I have been in this empty nest stage for many years and we have gotten very used to it. Sure, we were there to help our kids set up their first homes, making purchases, packing and unpacking boxes, renting vans, driving long distances.

However, the neediness of the persons in our family has steadily gone down over the years. 

Since I’ve retired, though, I’ve noticed Lily has become more needy. She somehow needs more help in the kitchen, help with laundry, help with cleaning and on it goes. 

But there is now a new neediest one in our home. And this guy is by far the neediest of them all. 

His name is Martin. You’d think that with a name like Martin he would be an engineer or a doctor or something. Martin is neither; he’s a dog. He’s a nice dog, but man is he needy.

For the last two weeks we have been dog-sitting for our daughter and son-in-law while they’ve been on vacation. 

Martin is a well-behaved dog, but he is also a rescue dog which brings a whole other level of neediness to the situation. 

This guy needs petting and loving 24/7. And we found out early that if you give him all the attention he wants, he becomes demanding about it. 

We’ve had to back off a bit. 

But still, he is by far the neediest one in the family now. 

He’s shedding so much that Lily’s got the vacuum on high alert. He needs walks every day, food and treats. But since he can’t get food out of the cupboard, we even have to set his food down for him.

The little fellow runs like a gazelle and wants to be chased in the backyard every time we let him out. 

Oh, and Martin even needs us to pick up after he does his thing. I didn’t sign up for that part. 

We love the guy, but he sure is needy – the neediest one in the family.

I don’t see it changing any time soon.

Here’s the thing: We all have long lists of things we need and want. I wonder if God has the same thoughts about me as I have about Martin: “I love you, man, but you are the neediest guy I know.” Thankfully, God expects us to depend on Him, to need Him. If we think we don’t need God, then we foolishly have placed ourselves in the position of God in our lives. Since we obviously can not secure our own forgiveness or eternity, being needy is a good position to be in. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to depend on God for? Leave your comments and questions below.

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A Purchase Made Without Objection Are Often The Best

Making a purchase is better when you don’t have anyone interjecting negativity.

a purchase made without objection are often the best

Some people call that making a snap purchase, where the mood or the moment hits you and you strike the deal. Others say that emotions and persuasion put the pressure on you to buy.

But none of that is necessarily true. 

We’ve probably all been there, where we have done the research, looked at the purchase from many angles, but then had some voice of reason or restraint nix the desired acquisition.

I remember when my brother and I were little, we had begged our mom to let us go to the store to buy some candy.

In a moment of weakness she said we could. 

John and I immediately trotted off to our bedroom to get our cash. We had little change purses that we started loading up from our piggy banks. We thought they would be easier to carry to the convenience store than our piggy banks. 

The intent was to take every penny – and I literally mean pennies – because you never know how much some candy is going to cost. 

Our mother walked into our bedroom right in the middle of us trying to squeeze the last cent into our little wallets. She said, “No way, boys. You are not going to the store now.” I guess she didn’t like our desires to spend our life savings on candy. 

She was the negative voice … mom would have characterized herself as the voice of reason. 

Sometimes you don’t need that voice. Sometimes you don’t want that voice to impact your decision to buy things. Sometimes you seize a moment when there are no discouraging voices to throw you off your intent. 

One of those times for me was the purchase of a leaf mulcher. I purchased that when Lil had gone on a trip and I needed to collect the leaves in the yard. 

That purchase was researched and thought through and fifteen years later I’m still glad I made that purchase.

Well, I just did it again. 

Lily was away on a business trip and I had recently had a friend speak highly of the FoodSaver vacuum seal machines. Years ago I had thought it might be something we should have, but never got any good vibes from Lily on it. 

With Lily away and a renewed interest in sucking the life out of food products in order to freeze them fresh, I started to research. 

I checked them out at a few different establishments and got an idea of what the average price would be. It didn’t take long. The second store I went to had a great deal that included freezing bags and all. 

Before I could blink, I was in the checkout line at Costco and then walking out with my new FoodSaver machine. 

The first day I froze bread and pizza. … I can hardly wait to freeze chicken wings. 

And when I thawed the frozen bread I packaged with my new purchase, it tasted like it had just come out of the bread maker. 

Another great purchase!

Here’s the thing: There are times when having someone speak into your life is best. There are times when you get a sense of what God wants you to do. It might be a confession you should make or an action you should take. God may give you a path forward on a decision you’ve been contemplating. When He does, take the course He is setting you on and don’t look for negative voices. They will only impede you in doing what you know is best for you. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is it that you just need to follow through on right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Doing Stuff You Don’t Like Doing

Where do you sit on doing stuff you don’t like to do? Are you one of those people who takes it on as a challenge or a duty? Or are you one of those people who will, if possible, do anything other than the stuff you don’t like doing?

Doing stuff you don't like doing

For some things, I often fall into the second category. If I can I will avoid things I don’t like to do and for as long as I can.

When I was young we had a huge back yard and my brother and I would take turns cutting it. I didn’t like cutting the back yard because it took an hour and a half. And when you are thirteen, an hour and a half is like an eternity! It was precious time I would never get back. 

Well, I would put off cutting the lawn until I almost needed a swather to come cut it. I always hoped that a farmer would look at our lawn and bring his combine over and make hay bales out of the grass. 

The thing about leaving something you don’t like doing is that the delay often makes it worse. You will eventually have to do it but it’ll be harder to do when you finally get to it. 

I sometimes will look for excuses to not do the stuff I don’t want to do … like a baseball pitcher with a hang nail who misses his start in the rotation and has to go on the DL. 

Put a little crazy glue on that hang nail and get out there and throw some strikes! 

Meanwhile in the NHL playoffs this past week, a player had a skate jammed up under his visor just missing his eye. He went to the dressing room, got 74 stitches in his forehead and around his eye, missed about thirty minutes of the game while the doctor worked on him, and then came back to play the rest of the game. 

He gave no excuses … and probably makes $10 million less a year than the pitcher with the hang nail. 

And then there was me the other day. 

I hate raking the lawn the first time in the spring. I will avoid it and flat out say, “No, I’m not doing it.” But now I’m retired and have some time on my hands. 

It’s definitely one of those things I don’t like doing. But I decided rather than putting off doing stuff I don’t like doing, I would get’er done.

So I got the rake out, put some gloves on and started raking. Five minutes in, my rake broke. 

That was my excuse; it was perfect.

But I hopped in my car and went and bought a new rake. Then I got right back to it.

Three rakes in, the handle came off. 

I was almost ready to call it quits and give in to my desire not to rake. Instead I took that rake downstairs and drove a nail through the rake and the handle. 

No excuses! I raked the lawn. … We’ll see about next year.

Here’s the thing: We can get into patterns or habits around our relationship with God. Circumstances often bring about those patterns or habits. One of those patterns I observed since coming out of lockdowns is people not going to church. It’s too easy to sleep in on Sunday morning or to watch church online … or to get to where church fits into the category of not doing stuff you don’t like doing. It’s not easy to break the pattern or change that attitude, but get up and get back to going to church. You will be more engaged in your faith and an encouragement to others who attend.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How much effort will it take to make it to church this week? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Linger Longer To Impact Relationships More

I think we need to linger more in order to enrich our lives. 

linger longer to impact relationships more

When I grew up playing hockey, my routine was to get into the dressing room late. I would have just enough time to put on my equipment and get onto the ice. At the end of the game, I would do the reverse. I would change quickly and be the first one out of the dressing room.

I think I have carried that practice into other areas of my life. 

But I hope to change that if I can. 

I don’t know how many golf games I’ve played with friends where we didn’t linger after the game. It seemed that there was always somewhere we had to be next. Whether that was getting home for dinner or to a meeting, there always seemed to be a bit of a rush to leave the course. 

That’s not the way it always was though. 

I remember playing golf with the same buddies at 7:20 Saturday mornings. When we finished we would sit in the club house and talk about our game and life for another hour.

I didn’t realize how much I missed that part of the game. I say that like lingering in the club house is part of the golf game because there is something to that. 

You see, by lingering after a game you savour the time you spent together knocking balls into holes.

Later I regularly played with another group of friends. We had a standing Thursday night 9 holes … or more if we could still see the ball.

Afterwards we went to McDonald’s for ice cream cones or sundaes. What we were doing is lingering.

I realized that I enjoyed that part as much as I enjoyed playing golf with those guys. 

There really is something to this lingering. You miss something in the connection when you don’t linger. 

This reflection of mine started this week because a friend called me up. He knew Lily was away and wondered if I wanted to have dinner together.

We had some extra time before we were ready to eat so we met at my house, talked for a while, then picked up a pizza and came back to my house. 

We just hung out. And that’s what lingering is. It enriches a relationship. 

We hang out lots as kids, but somewhere in adulthood we forget or get too busy to hang out, to linger. 

Today I played hockey. I got there a little late and had to quickly get ready. That’s my style. But after the game, I was the last one to leave the dressing room. I lingered. 

And that is where connections are made.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes people wonder why they don’t feel all that close to God, to the point where they wonder if He is even all that close. I can tell you one thing, if you linger with God, that’s when you find your relationship with Him is enriched. You won’t wonder why God doesn’t feel close; you will experience His presence in rich and meaningful ways. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who do you need to linger with? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Thirty-Five Is Way More Than Just A Number

Thirty-five is just a number until you put some context to it, and a number can have many contexts. 

Thirty-five is way more than just a number

It can represent the number of years one has lived on this earth. … I remember when I was 35 years old, mountain biking with my youth group in the mountains in Jasper, Alberta. A bunch of them wanted to take a black diamond trail, so I figured I should go along. 

About a third of the way down, I thought to myself, “I’m too old to keep up with these kids.” I had watched them grow from junior-highers to 16 and 17 year olds and I was feeling old.

Thirty-five can also be used in the context of money. It wasn’t that long ago when $35 was about the price of a round of golf. Well, those days have long gone.

Some people might have possessions that were made 35 years ago, but I can’t think of too many things I own that are that old. 

I don’t have any clothes from back then; I don’t have a bike that is that old; certainly not a car … though a car that old would be considered vintage.

The house I live in hasn’t been around that many years, and I don’t have children that age either.

But I do have something that is 35 years old and that is a ring. It was made 35 years ago and I actually received it 35 years ago to this day (August 17).

I know you’ve guessed that it’s my wedding ring.

Thirty-five years ago today I married Lily. Well, it’s not quite 35 yet because we were married in the afternoon and I’m writing this in the morning. 

A “35” in front of “anniversary” has context. Some might consider it vintage, while others would say we’re just getting started.

But thirty-five years of marriage packs a lot of memories, and those memories go back to when we looked like kids.

I have memories of our honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina that I can’t give you any details about … though we did play a number of championship mini-putt courses there.

I also have memories of our 10th anniversary when we stayed in the FantasyLand Hotel at West Edmonton Mall. We stayed in the Polynesian Room, but I can’t give you any details about that either.

What I can tell you is that I have loved every minute of our 35 years together. 

Well, every minute might be stretching it.

Lily and I have shared many amazing times, emotions and events in our life together. And we have also shared some low times as well.

Like any marriage, you reminisce about the good times and grow deeper together in the tough times. 

I even remember one anniversary where we spent the night in a dorm room of a university, while taking twenty-one high school students to a youth conference in Waterloo, Ontario.

… Funny thing is I can’t give you any details on that one either.

Here’s the thing: Most of us can quantify our love for someone. We can identify when we realized we loved that person and we can calculate the time from then until now. But God’s love for us is more complicated than that. His numbering system is more difficult to quantify. God says in the Bible that He’s “loved you with an everlasting love”. That almost defies putting it into context, but we know exactly what He means. Accept His love today if you haven’t already. Celebrate and reminisce about His love if you already have it. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What number means something to you? Leave your comments and questions below.

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A Name Contains A Lot More Information

A Name contains a lot more information

There are times when you see a name or title and you know exactly what it refers to.

There are company names that do this very well. In the US there is a store named “Stop and Shop”. There is no question about what that store is all about. You stop your car and then you shop – it’s easy.

There are, however, store names that can leave us puzzled, like “Giant Food Stores”. I’m not sure if the food comes in giant packages or if the food they sell is so large that only giants would shop there. 

Another store is “Piggly Wiggly” – that’s a grocery store name. You would never know it … or maybe you would. … I think I’ll leave that one alone.

There are some people who don’t look like their name. I’ve met people for the first time and, when I’m told their name, I think, “No way. They look more like a Jim or a John.” 

Sheryl Crow sang about that once in a song called, “All I Wanna Do”. She sang, “He says his name is William, but I’m sure it’s Bill or Billy or Mack or Buddy.”

It’s good when a name matches, isn’t it? 

But if a product’s name describes a function of the product, it better live up to its name.

This week I was back to work after being on vacation for a while. You always hope that things will go smoothly your first week back in the office.  

Well, I was working away and I often make notes on a white board and then scan them to my phone. I then wipe off the board and make more notes and scan another page when the board is full.

I had two days of note taken on my phone – about five pages. When I went to save those pages to my computer, the app on my phone started up like it was the first time I used it. 

And yes, you guessed it: all my notes were gone. 

There was a button to restore old notes but, when I clicked it, there were no recent documents. 

I had five pages on that app less than 24 hours ago!  

The app said it stores files on the phone for 30 days. There was nothing. 

You know who makes the app? A company called “Evernote”.

Did you get that? “Ever” means it never ends; it will always be there. My notes should be around for ever. That’s what the company name means and I think, if I’m not mistaken, that is what they are trying to describe with their name.

My first week back in the office and my Evernotes are like never notes, like I never made them at all.

Maybe a better name for the company would be “Some Notes”. Then you’d have a heads up that only some of your notes will last while others will disappear … for ever.

I’ll still use Evernote but I’m not going to treat it like it’s name suggests.

Here’s the thing: The Bible describes God as being the same yesterday, today and forever. So you can count on God to be faithful, to act with a loving heart and to act with the end in mind. God can not go against His nature. He will live up to His name.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to trust God for today, given that He will follow through on it?  Leave your comments and questions below.

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People Are Tougher Than God

In some ways people are tougher than God. The Canadian election campaign has  recently highlighted that fact for me.

people

To a lot of people, God is tough. They view Him as the all-seeing kill joy, just waiting to pounce on someone who does wrong. 

Some people equate God with punishment – a punishment that is swift and harsh.

However, a careful look at the Bible will see a rather different God – one who is patient … so patient that the reader can get a little impatient with God’s patience with people.

As for punishment, rather than being punitive, the Bible shows that most of God’s punishment is for the purpose of correction and restoration. 

I was reading in the news today about all the candidates that have had to pull out of the election campaign, or were asked to step down by their party leaders because of comments they made through social media. 

The interesting thing is that most of these offences happened years ago. In some cases, the comments were made decades ago.

It seems, however, that a comment made – no matter what decade it was made in – still truly represents a person. 

Even when people apologize for comments made in their past, there is still a cloud of mistrust that hangs over them. There remains a question mark in the minds of the voters regarding whether this person can be trusted now, or ever again.

There is not a person alive, or a person who has ever lived, who has not said something in their past that they would regret if it were made known years and years later. 

There is not one person who has ever lived who has not said something, only to find out later through new information that they were wrong, or to be convicted later about some attitude they once held but no longer do. 

But in this political campaign, watch out because you will pay dearly for those comments if they get out. It will not be a quiet matter either; it will be made public for millions to know. You will face shame, and there is a good chance you will lose your ability to serve publicly.

The reason for all this? Two things, or the lack of them: forgiving and forgetting.

Especially because of social media, forgetting won’t happen. 

But people also have a hard time forgetting. Our minds are like high-end computers that can spit out data on demand, no matter how long that data has been stored there.

Then there is the forgiving.

We all want to be forgiven but we don’t like to forgive. We like to hang on to our hurts and hold others accountable for what they say and do. 

People are just like what they think God is like. They are hard, shaming, guilt-producing, angry, condemning, self-righteous and self-appointed gods.

… You only have to watch the commercials that are aired on television from now to the end of the election to see that this is true.

Here’s the thing: It’s awesome that God is not at all like that. Why? Two things: forgiving and forgetting. God is a forgiving God who willingly and lovingly forgives those who want to be forgiven. He is the God of the second chance … and third and fourth, for that matter. And God is forgetting. Rather than remembering what He has forgiven, in case He wanted to use it against us, God chooses to forget. It can never come back to haunt us.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been guilty of not forgiving and forgetting? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Lacked Something Really Important

This week I realized I lacked something most people would assume I had. 

We sometimes assume that a store will have a certain item we are looking for, only to find when we get there that they are out-of-stock or worse – they don’t even sell that product at all. 

Not long ago I needed to purchase a wooden end plug for a new hockey stick I had bought.  The store I usually get them from was out-of-stock at the time.  

I thought I would see if I could get one at another sports store. 

When I couldn’t find even a spot for these plugs on any of their shelving, I asked an employee. His initial reaction told me they didn’t have them. He had no clue what I was talking about, so he checked his little handheld computer to discover the store didn’t even carry them.

I wasn’t that surprised to find they didn’t have them at this time – after all it is summer – but I did assume they would carry the product since hockey is one of their specialties. 

Then this week I found myself not only lacking a stick plug, but something more important.

For the last ten months we have been dealing with a leaky roof at our church. The ability to stop the leak has eluded the roofers for the umpteenth times they have tried to fix it. 

In the mean time, our caretaker has made two elaborate troughs to catch the water and keep it from hitting the carpet. These troughs are each about six feet long and very noticeable. 

The other day our caretaker said to me, “Maybe we should put the troughs away for now.”  

We haven’t had any leaks for the past three weeks and the last time the roofers came they fixed a large section that they discovered might be the problem. 

Since then we haven’t had a leak, but we also have not had much rain to really test it. 

I hesitated and said, “I’d like to believe it’s fixed but I’m not holding my breath.” … We’ve had high hopes before, only for them to be dashed a short time later when the roof started leaking again. 

I finally replied, “Well, let’s just move one trough out of the way underneath the coat rack.” I wanted it close by so that if it started leaking we could put it back quickly.

My caretaker wanted to get both troughs out of sight, but I didn’t really want to go that far.

Then he wanted to sit the other trough inside the one we put under the coat rack, virtually removing any leakage protection we had. 

To that I said, “You have more faith than I do.”

I got to thinking … I’m the guy most people would think would have the faith to believe that our leaky roof has been fixed. Faith is the basis of my job as a pastor. But here I was low on faith for something my caretaker had no problem with. 

Here’s the thing: I don’t lack faith in God, but I did lack faith in what God would do for us in this particular situation. When you lack faith, your actions or non-actions will give you away. That’s when you need to think a little more about your lack of faith. Figure out why you lack faith for something and then take steps to apply your faith in God for that thing. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is something in your life you realize you have lacked faith for and really need to trust God with? Leave your comments below.

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The Answer To An Age-Old Automobile Controversy

This post is from 2014. From time to time II like to republish posts I’ve written in the past.  I hope you enjoy it.

I believe I’ve uncovered the mystery to a controversy that has baffled mankind of a long time … at least since the passenger car was invented.

In fact, I feel a little like Banting and Best when they discovered insulin, or when a scientist discovers some kind of breakthrough that will lead to possibly finding a partial cure for a certain strain of a multifaceted disease that continues to develop into different strains.

Whoa, I got a little dizzy just writing that.  

Back to my discovery. I got in the car the other day and when I turned a corner the sun shining through the windshield almost blinded me. All I could see was a big red ball of light, so I quickly pulled down the sun visor to block it out.

When I did that, I stumbled onto something that could be a key to changing driving habits, all the way to changing insurance rates. 

When I pulled down that visor, I almost scared myself into the next lane of traffic. The shield covering the visor mirror was gone. I went from looking into the centre of the sun to looking at two eyes staring at me and it freaked me out.

Fortunately, I controlled myself and stayed in my lane. But not everyone is as composed as I am when they drive. And here’s my discovery …

The mirror in the visor is a driving hazard and the ones who are guilty of using it are mostly women. Because of it, they are causing untold numbers of accidents. 

Every time I look behind the visor, if my wife has been sitting in the seat before me, that mirror is visible. Imagine how many men have jerked the steering wheel to the left, when they’ve suddenly seen a pair eyes about six inches from their face. 

Or how about the light that reflects off a woman’s bleached white teeth, hits the mirror and like a laser pointer temporarily blinds some poor unsuspecting driver behind her.  Another accident.

Or what about the woman who’s putting on her makeup and drifts a little, causing the car beside her to swerve and careen into a light pole on the side of the road.

You see what I’m saying?  

Statistics says that “80% of collisions and 65% of near crashes have some form of driver inattention as contributing factors” (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2010).

I’m not saying women cause more fatal accidents. No, men are best at doing that. But statistics say that women are in more fender benders than men.

It’s that distraction factor, and a little piece of the solution could have something to do with the mirror that is on the back of sun visors. 

This is still an early discovery. Now I just have to figure out how to get Lily to place the cover back over the mirror when she’s done.

Here’s the thing: God is trying to teach us all the time, but often we are distracted by other things. Being attentive to little things can lead you to discover something amazing about God that you haven’t noticed before. You can learn much about God from life around you. Don’t be so distracted by something that’s right in your face that you miss learning about God’s character and how that relates to you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What discovery have you made recently about God? I’d love to hear from you; you can leave your comment below.

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My Complaint Was Unjustified

I was a little too hasty with my complaint.

Spring is here and I should be writing about mountain biking, hockey playoffs or maybe baseball. 

… Or how about those Raptors and Kawhi Leonard’s four bouncer, rim shot, buzzer beater to send Toronto to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals?

But I can’t write about those things. I’m still trying to get my head around my latest bill from Bell Canada.

At the beginning of April I got a shock when our TV/Internet bill increased by $79 from the previous month. (I wrote about it here.)

I got a double shocker this month when my latest bill appeared to be devoid of any adjustments.

After the big increase a month ago, I had called Bell and complained. … I’ll make this short by saying they gave me a $40 reduction on my bill plus faster internet service. To get that, I was on the phone for way longer than an hour with more than one customer service rep.

Within a day or two I noticed some results. They kept their promise of adding three free stations and removing one station, but the internet service didn’t seem any faster. 

Then this month’s bill showed the free stations, but no mention of the upgraded internet, and the same price for TV and Internet as the month before. 

Back to the phones I went! … If nothing else the phone company is ensuring we are still using their services because we have to call them all the time to complain! 

This time the conversation was more disturbing and discouraging than the previous month. 

I talked to two customer service reps who didn’t want to budge. They basically dismissed what I had been told a month earlier. They said that the notes for that complaint didn’t say anything about the credits and changes we had agreed upon. 

In the end, the rep said that she would have her manager call me.  

So I have to wait for the manager’s call … which also means there may be a follow up to this post some time in the future.

Then this morning, as I reviewed my bill again, I noticed something I had missed before. All the itemized charges are the same as the previous month, but there is an amount in an adjustments box with no explanation.

That adjustment is a credit. It only shows up on the remittance page, but it brings my bill to what was promised me the month before.

So I didn’t get faster internet and there doesn’t seem to be any record of or reason given for the credit, but I got one. 

The question I still have is, “Will this credit show up every month?” There is no record of what it is for, so it would be easy to just drop it.

As it stands now, when the manager calls, the only thing I can say to him is … in the words of Saturday Night Live’s Emily Litella, “Never Mind”.

Here’s the thing: I’m distrustful about what my tech company has given me. They might take it away as fast as I received it; it only shows up as a mystery item on my bill. How many times do we treat God that way when He gives us something? We treat Him as though He might take it away at any moment, or we are suspicious of whether it was God who gave it to us in the first place. You might not be able to trust your tech company, but you can trust God. Give Him the credit and praise He deserves.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What has God provided for you that you didn’t really thank Him for? Leave your comment below.