internet

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Change Is A Curious Thing That Impacts Us Differently

Change is a curious thing. To one it can bring much joy and to another it can bring much heartache.

change is a curious thing that impacts us differently

I recently changed internet providers and the change has been a good thing.

Even making the change was not that disruptive … which was surprising because change, even change for the better, can be disruptive.

When a family moves, the change brings some challenges. The good things like more room or nicer amenities will be enjoyed, but there is that whole process of packing up one’s home and unpacking ii all in another, not to mention all the real estate and financing that has to be worked out. 

The family will enjoy the change – in this case, their new home – once they are settled in. They just have to wait until all the details have been worked through.

But for my internet change, I didn’t miss a beat. I can’t say that there was any time when my internet was down. Even though I was switching companies, they both rent the cable line from the same cable company. Somehow they made the switch without dropping the service. 

Everything about this change has gone really well. I can’t be more pleased.

However, that’s not everyone’s experience with change, nor is it my experience with every change in my life. 

Our lives change, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. There is a lot of change we can make happen but there is some change we don’t have a say in. It just happens. 

Change in our weather or climate is like that. 

This summer we’ve seen the news or experienced the devastation of fires all over Canada and now mainly in the west: people displaced, homes destroyed – it has been horrible for many. 

And there has been much finger pointing at climate change. 

The curious thing about climate change is that while the west is in a struggle to stop the fires that have altered so many lives, here where I live the weather has been wetter and cooler this summer. 

Change for one can be so different than for another. 

With climate change, I’m not sure we can control it like I can control when and how I change my internet. I’m not convinced the measures we take to prevent climate change will have a significant effect on the changing climate that’s taking place in our world. 

Maybe we should brace ourselves for change, or embrace the changes we can’t control. 

We should live responsibly and help one another through the difficulties some change brings.

Here’s the thing: This world is not everlasting; it will not last forever. Evolutionists believe it has already been here from millions of years. Creationists have God’s Word that says the world will not last. Near the end there will be more frequent natural disasters and wars, among other things. The best way to brace for change is to put your faith in God who has a plan. Embrace Christ; he will help you through all life’s changes.

That’s Life!

Paul

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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.

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Is It Possible To Be Too Involved in Something?

I got myself way too involved and didn’t realize it until I was deep into it.

The other day we changed our phone and internet service at work. 

We had been with the same internet company for 23 years but they couldn’t offer us any faster service than we were getting even though it was no longer adequate.

I still wouldn’t have made the change but the price point was almost the same for 10 times faster internet.

Even then I was still sceptical that the new company could give us increased service, knowing that the phone wires in our building were ancient.

I was assured by the salesman that it would be a very simple change over … no trouble; it would be seamless; I wouldn’t notice a thing.

Salesmen are all about the sale. They will tell you what you want to hear. I, on the other hand, knew our building and didn’t think for a moment that it would be seamless. 

But I was curious.

When the installer came, he realized about five minutes after he arrived that this was not going to be a simple change over. 

In fact, just getting a new cable to our building took all morning. Then there was all the inside work.

The installer had help in the morning, but in the afternoon he was on his own. 

He asked me if I wanted to see where things were going to go down in the basement and I said, “Sure.”

Costly reply.

In the process of showing me where things were going, he also got me to hold something … then pass him something else and help him follow a wire.

I then located a hole in the ceiling where he could feed a cable up through to the main floor of the building – a significant deal because we have reinforced concrete floors and he would have otherwise had to drill through it to get the wire up.

But by this time, my sermon writing had been abandoned and I was helping him trouble shoot some of the other things that needed to be negotiated.

It was like offering to help someone move who tells you he just has a small apartment and that one truckload will do it. But when you show up, nothing is packed in boxes and there is no truck. You are left lugging carloads of items piled throughout you car and trunk. 

… And the one trip it was going to take ends up being four or five trips back and forth. 

We’ve all been there.  

This time I got roped in by just wanting to see where the installer was going to put things … and, from that point on, he had a lackey he could count on. 

The seamless change, that I would barely even notice, cost me my sermon writing time, and an afternoon of being an assistant. 

The work that had been scheduled for 8:00 am – 12:00 pm, ended up being from 8:00 am – 4:30 pm, with me deeply involved in it. 

But you know what? The new internet speed is amazing!

Here’s the thing: Like anything in life, your relationship with Christ will take you deeper than you realized or thought it would at the start. Are you able to say “yes” to going deeper with Christ than you thought you would or could? Christ will always call you to deeper levels of relationship. Don’t ever settle or try to minimize the work you will be called to do. It will all be worth it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What in your life has taken you deeper than you thought it would? Leave your comments below.

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My Internet Issue Is Beyond Explanation

I have an internet issue that just doesn’t make sense to me, but I know there must be an explanation.

It’s been incredibly frustrating.

From the first day that we opened up our cottage last spring until we closed it up just now, we had issues with the internet.

We couldn’t seem to keep our modem connected.

For a while I thought that the modem might have been faulty, so I replaced it. The new one worked at first, but then later stopped working.

Then I thought, “Maybe it’s not the modem; maybe it’s something else.”

For most of the summer I figured it was the splitter that splits the signal between the modem and the TV.

I bought a new splitter, but that didn’t work either. In fact, it made the signal worse for the TV. I guess I bought a cheap splitter.

But when I put the old splitter back on my modem, it worked again.

That started a little dance with me and the splitter. Petty much every morning I had to go outside, underneath the cottage, and unhook the splitter. I would wait about 10 seconds and hook it back up.

This routine seemed to work. The modem would connect and we would have internet service in the cottage for a length of time … but I never knew how long a time.

Sometimes it would connect for an hour, but other times it would be good for most of the day.

It seemed that if the weather changed, that caused the internet to cut out. And with our weather this summer, we never went more than a couple of days without some amount of rain.

I wanted to get a really good splitter, but after my first attempt I was hesitant to buy another one for fear I would get the same results.

I felt like I was back in the day when one would try to bring in a TV signal with rabbit ears.

You remember – if you held the antenna with your right hand, stood on your left foot and opened your mouth, then you could see a picture on the TV.

You just couldn’t move; you were stuck in that position while everyone else got to see the show.

It just didn’t make sense to me. I was doing something that I didn’t think should make a difference and it was working … but I don’t know how or why it worked.

A neighbour offered me a really good splitter that he wasn’t using, and it seemed to work well for the day.

I thought maybe that was it; problem solved.

But when we came up to close the cottage for the winter, guess what? No internet.

I had to go out and dance with the splitter again.

My only other explanation is that the upload signal is weak and that’s why it has a hard time connecting.

I’m going to have to wait until next year to test that theory.

At least I won’t have a hard time remembering what to try. When I go up there in the spring and the internet doesn’t connect, the memory of this year will come flooding back to me.

Here’s the thing: We like to understand things. We don’t like it when something doesn’t make sense to us, so we often draw our own conclusions. They don’t have to be right; they just have to make sense to us. Be careful you don’t do that with God. He is above our understanding.

That’s Life!

Paul