“User Error”

  

     I've been having trouble typing of late, with the cursor on my computer screen seeming to jump around crazily. I initially blamed the keyboard, telling Frances, "My keys have gotten so sensitive that I barely touch them and they throw letters on the screen that aren't supposed to be there!"  There is actually a setting on my computer for the rate at which letters appear after touching their key, which I changed in the expectation it would resolve my issue.  It didn’t help, however, and the problem continued.

    Last week I finally discovered the true source of the difficulty, namely, user error. The position of my hands has become very sloppy over the years, and I’ve also been attempting to type too fast (without realizing it).  Addressing these two issues has pretty much solved my problem, and I've discovered again that, as Frances has long suggested, computer problems are more often than not computer user problems.

    Since Adam and Eve shifted blame from themselves after their sin in the Garden of Eden, their offspring through the ages tend to follow in the wake of self-delusion.  We’d much rather blame someone other than ourselves, or, as in my case, something rather than ourselves.  “Stupid computer!”  No, stupid Glen.  This was the issue in my recent dilemma, and hopefully I will respond to yet another reminder that my initial response to trouble best begins with a look toward myself.

    This truth applies even more to the spiritual and moral issues of our existence.  Indeed, hell will be full of people who bemoaned throughout their lifetime, “It’s not my fault!”  Sadly, such delusion often characterizes born again believers, and we do well to remember our fleshly tendency to shift blame for sin away from ourselves.  Other people can certainly influence us to travel downward paths.  However, if we jump into the pit of sin and wrong, in whatever form, the fault is ours.  “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee” (Psalm 32:5).  The unbeliever cannot be saved apart from such God-fostered self-awareness, nor can the believer live the Christian life.

    I have let my computer keyboard off the hook.  I’ve replaced it with myself, acknowledging that the fault was mine.   My typing is much better, and my petty self-pity no longer deludes me, at least regarding this issue.  May the Lord search me for other areas where “user error” is clearly the problem, but even more, where “user blame shifting” hinders God’s solution of grace in Christ for those who trust Him by accepting personal responsibility for their faults.

“Search me, o God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

(Psalm 139:23-24)