C.S. Lewis said somewhere that life provides us with the raw material. Our spiritual decisions are what we do with that raw material. Coming from this perspective, we see everything in life differently: mundane events become the portals to eternal discovery. Its fascinating to sit back and watch it happen.
Ironic, as well, that God used a Mac to do it for me lately.
After Karen and I, both being Mac users, decided it was time to upgrade computers, we decided to go with a desktop instead of notebooks. There were many logical reasons behind this decision, and we did exactly that. I had no idea how it would cause selfishness to rear its ugly head.
See, part of my spiritual journey since being married has been discovering just how selfish I can be, as I grew up as an only child. It manifests in ways I never dreamed. Now even more so, because I’m used to using my computer whenever I want. Now we share. Seems simple enough, but the struggles and frustration it inspired in the beginning (not to mention the argument on at least one occasion) defy easy explanation. This was a growing experience.
I like to think we’ve crested the difficulties and are moving downhill now. However, the deepest realization that I had…a re-discovery of an epiphany, if you like…was that I can place the priorities in my life in completely the wrong order with ease. As much as I admire excellent craftsmanship and artistic design (hence, Macs), I can permit objects exemplifying these qualities to take too high a priority in my life. I found that I had to be intentional after purchasing my (oops…our) new toy, as it would all too easily take precedence over my wife and other people (I would find myself thinking more about playing with the computer during my workday than I would be paying attention to clients) if I wasn’t careful.
So, in short, I have recently been shown again what is important in life, and it must always be people over possessions, a counter-intuitive concept in our hopelessly materialistic culture. I find it no end of amusing that a Mac was the raw material used to demonstrate this to me.
If Lewis were a computer-user, he would have been, I think, greatly amused.