Unplugging

I support the blackberry environment at my company. Some people refer to these little devices as "crackberries" because they are almost as addictive as crack. People like to stay connected and some families have had problems because mom and dad can't put the things down. They just feel compelled to keep doing email. I often laugh with the people in my company who are like that. Then I get smug and think about how I'm not like them.

A good friend of mine hosts my email. The ISP that hosts his mail relay was down for 32 hours, so I wasn't getting any email. I get a LOT of email every day and this was starting to bother me last night. It was OK during the day since I probably shouldn't be doing a lot of personal email during work hours anyway, but it stopped being funny as I went to bed last night. It just started working again in the last hour and my old messages are trickling in.

I've come to realize that I am no different than my workaholic team lead. I am no better than those salespeople who like to think that the Bank will shut down without them. I think this email outage was a good reminder to me that I am not Setting Captives Free. I'm just someone who helps out by grace alone. God is in charge of all this and I'm just a tool in His hands. I need to remember that.

This also reminds me that I need to be careful when I do get into full-time ministry. I could see how it can take over someone's life if they aren't careful.