Lessons from my laptop

Over recent weeks I have noticed that my laptop has been getting slower and slower in responding to commands.  The screen has been regularly 'freezing' for short periods, which can be a little frustrating when I am trying to get some work done.  It has seemed particularly slow at getting going when I first turn it on in the morning.  Perhaps, like human beings, as computers age they find mornings increasingly difficult?

I am far from being a computer boffin.  In fact, my relationship with my laptop is rather like the relationship I have with my car.  I have learned how to drive them and make them do what I want them to do, but I have little or no idea how they work or what to do if something goes wrong.  I decided to discover what I could do to try and solve the issue, and came across a helpful YouTube clip which gave a couple of pieces of advice, both of which I have tried, with encouraging results.  As I have reflected on the two actions which were suggested, my 'preacher's mind' soon worked out how both can be applied to the Christian life!

The first piece of advice was to run a programme called 'Disc Cleanup.'  This programme identifies files which are no longer of any use but which are still being stored on the system, and then gives you the opportunity to remove them, freeing up space.  In effect, I suppose, it's like going through one's filing cabinet and getting rid of all the old paperwork which is out of date or irrelevant.  Relating that to the Christian life, a passage in the New Testament book of Hebrews came to mind: 'let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.'  In the life of following Jesus we are called to be single-minded and devoted to living life in God's way.  There is always the danger that some elements of our lives might divert is from our purpose, clog up the system, and slow us down in 'running the race.'

The second programme which was suggested was the Disc Defragmenter.  As I understand it, over time various pieces of data get spread out over the hard drive (the data stored becomes fragmented).  When this happens, it takes much longer to read the data.  I guess that it's like having a book where the pages are in random order.  It would be rather frustrating and time-consuming to have to be constantly searching through the book to find the next page!  The Defragmenter programme sorts out all the various data files into an order, so that individual files can be much more easily accessed.  Not only that, but it moves all the files to one part of the disc, thus creating a much larger area of free space for future use.

What is clear is that fragmentation slows down the whole system.   Yesterday evening I attended a meeting at one of my churches, the purpose of which was to talk about our relationships with other churches in the local area and ask how we might be able to work together more effectively.  I began our time together by reading some words of Jesus from Matthew's gospel, 'Any town or family that divides itself into groups which fight each other will fall apart.'  If as followers of Jesus we allow ourselves to become fragmented, not only do we deny our calling to be 'one in Christ Jesus', but we also undermine our witness to our community, and will certainly not be as fruitful in God's service as we could be.  We see in society and the world around us the terrible consequences of fragmentation and division.  Our call as followers of Jesus is to 'love one another' and to demonstrate that unity in diversity really is possible.

Apologies to my computer literate friends if I have made any technical errors in my descriptions above (perhaps ignorance really is bliss!)





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