Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. The Epistle of James 1:2-4 (MSG)
accretion: the process of growth or enlargement by a gradual buildup
decretion: (archaic) the act of decreasing
It would have been helpful for me to remember that verse in James at one point. One of the benefits of things like computers is the way they test our responses to “challenges.” Technological difficulties for people like me who operate on a modest scale can send us from zero to hysterical in a flash.
Several years ago, I was having yet another technological challenge. This time, it was my blog that, for some unfathomable reason (to me), began to load very slowly. Slooooowly. Over a minute to access a link. Initially, I just hoped it would heal itself. “Heal yourself,” I said. It didn’t. Cluster migraines (unrelated, but tiresome) interfered with my ability to move past denial.
Lurking beyond denial was the next plane—Worst Case Scenario, wherein the problem was sure to be a fatal flaw. All my material would be
- corrupted
- eventually inaccessible
- lost forever
Eventually, I contacted someone local who had (somewhat) patiently guided me through previous woes. She would surely get back to me. She didn’t.
In desperation, I called my husband’s nephew in Texas. Daniel is married, owns a real estate brokerage business, and has three children. He is busy. And he knows a lot about computers.
I, sort of calmly, explained my plight. He, in his calm and comforting voice, asked a few questions, then took me step by step into my sluggish website. Almost immediately, he asked, “What about your plug-ins?”
Plug-ins? Yes, he explained patiently. Code is the language of computers. Plug-ins are nifty add-ons that, without your knowing code, make it possible to add functionality and/or new features to your website. However, they can also be described as “foreign“, eventually weighing down a site.
Which mine was. I let him do his work, and he started methodically down the list, plug-in by plug-in. Keep this one activated, deactivate that one. Some were deleted altogether. And it was like my website slowly woke from a nap, yawned, perked up, and went back to work. Oh, the relief—and gratefulness for a Daniel in my life.
This experience had me thinking bout accretions:
- this habit
- that tendency
- this (unnecessary?) obligation
- that distraction
- lack of focus
- creeping spiritual inertia
And I was delighted to find that “decretion” is actually a word—not used much since the 1600s, but still a word. And it is something to consider in the prelude to Resurrection Day.
This experience was a gift. Loaded down with too many of life’s plug-ins, we won’t be in top form for the wonderful work of God’s kingdom. Assess, deactivate, and even delete.
Mature? Well-developed? Not deficient in any way? James says those are the results we can expect. So let’s make it a Lenten project. Here’s me cheering us on.