A couple Saturday’s ago I was working on my laptop. It was about the time to begin dinner preparation so I closed the lid and set it down. When I came back to it after dinner and opened the lid, all I got was a black screen. I pressed every key I could think would make a difference and finally decided just to turn it off. Trying to turn it back on failed. All I got was a couple screens with nonsense. After multiple tries, I gave up. I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy that night since they were open until 8 PM.
I left it with them, hoping they could fix it. One hour later that hope was dashed. My hard drive crashed. It was so bad they could not even get “corrupted data” off it. They told me to come in the next day and get a new computer and they would help me get it set up.
I keep everything on my laptop—finances, devotions, blood glucose and insulin tracking, pictures, taxes—everything. A few years ago when I was actively pastoring, it also held all my messages and studies. I bought an external hard drive and would regularly (monthly) move things onto that hard drive as a backup, but since I retired, I have not done that. This broken, crashed laptop had everything on it from the past year.
I did do something right, however. I had a “cloud” program. Everything on my laptop was also stored in this “cloud” program. When I bought the new laptop that Sunday, the Geek Squad recovered all I had stored on this “cloud” and brought it back to me in a matter of minutes.
As I stood at that counter and watched everything make its way back to me, I could not help but recall what Jesus said about my “real” treasures in His Sermon on the Mount.
“But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [Matthew 6:20-21 HCSB]
