I hope that you’re all doing well and had a great Easter and Spring Break. I think most people should be back from their travels by now.
I have heard from several people that perhaps my messages have been a bit long. Well, I want to let you know that I hear you and to quote a famous American, I feel your pain. I’ll just share something short that happened to me this week at Apple.
At Apple, we have a tracking system to keep track of all the prototype and development hardware called “iTrack.” Actually, as you probably figured, most everything at Apple is called “i” something or other. Seems a little silly to me, but hey, I can play along. Anyway, as I was saying, everything it signed out and tracked. Once you have a device, you have to be able to account for it’s whereabouts at all times and if you ever give it to someone else, you have to transfer it on iTrack. Also, at the end of a project, all of the development samples are recalled and you have to hand them all in. And big time woe to the person who can’t find something and turn it in on time if it has been recalled! And that almost happened to me - not with one item, but with seven!
One of the problems is that I get hundreds of samples of things when I working on a new design and most of them don’t really survive in one piece. I often disassemble them, tweek them, rework them, and put them back together in a somewhat Frankenstein manner. Sometimes parts from one device get mixed up with parts from another and sometimes whole devices get mixed up, put in the wrong box, or misplaced. This week I received a recall notice for something that I had been working on from the time it was a concept until it was finally put out on the market. I dutifully gathered up all my samples which I had very carefully kept organized so that I wouldn’t lose any and took them to the distribution center to give them back. After scanning all the QR codes on every one of a box full of items I looked and the screen and there were still seven items that weren’t accounted for. I checked, double checked and triple checked and yep, they were missing. AAARG! What happened to them?!? (I should mention that these particular items would easily fit in any crack in any cupboard cabinet or closet. So today I spent the whole day searching through and clearing out every cabinet and drawer that I have and after hours of searching I FOUND THE LOST ITEMS!!! all seven of them in one place. I was so relieved.
After all that I know just what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10) He was talking about a woman who had ten coins and lost one so she turned her whole house inside out until she finally found it and was so relieved. That’s just how I felt. But you know what? In verse 10 Jesus says "I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” God’s angels feel the same way when they find one of us. Wow. : )
OK, that was a little longer than I had planned. But it’s also a good intro to intro to what we’ll be talking about this spring in New Light. Pastor Steve will be doing a series on the Arts of Spiritual Conversations which is about talking to people about God. And just think what it would be like if one of those conversations led to the Angels rejoicing because someone came to know God.
On to the schedule part:
High School Sunday School this Sunday.
New Light this Friday
Spirit West Coast on Sunday June 12th.
Also, one other important thing: There is a Real Options Baby Shower in the Fireside Room on Sunday evening at 6pm. All are invited to come, have cake, learn about Real Options and open baby gifts for clients of Real Options. I’ll send more information later.
Cheers!
Duane
New Light
7:15pm on Friday, April 8
Grace Community Covenant Church
Foothill Covenant Church
No comments:
Post a Comment