Our Corrupted Hard Drives
By
Dr. Dwight D. Garrett

I use my computer a lot, so much so that sometimes it is on and running programs, etc., 24 hours a day. Not too long ago, my computer became very sluggish and eventually “froze up”, becoming unable to function. Because I do a lot of work from my computer, and need it, I made an attempt to diagnose the problem and tried to “fix it” on my own. Nothing I did worked, so I took it to a computer technician for the problem to be diagnosed. After the technician ran a battery of tests on it, he turned to me, shook his head and informed me that the hard drive---the part of the computer that stores information to run the computer---was “hopelessly corrupted”.

“How could something like that happen?” I asked.

“It starts with a few areas, and then spreads to other areas till eventually it destroys the entire system ---it's known as a fatal virus” the technician explained.

He also explained that I was trying to “cram” too much information into the brains of my computer (overload) therefore leaving other areas, and devices open and venerable to misleading and potentially destructive information. He also explained to me that when I tried to fix it myself that I managed to do even more damage. He offered many more details, but it is too technically involved to explain. All I know is that the hard drive---the computers mind and heart---had to be replaced. Until it was, the computer simply was not going to respond.

In a similar way, our hearts can become unresponsive, even to God. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. Our stubborn habits and poor choices can accumulate and spread to our innermost being so that we ourselves become corrupted and no longer respond to God. Therefore we become overloaded and expose our hearts and minds and lives to misleading and potentially destructive information. But Jeremiah also spoke of God’s solution: “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33.

When our hearts and minds become corrupted, and when we experience “system failure” and eventual “shutdown”, we can make it even worse by trying to take our own corrective measures. Only when we allow God to change our hearts and fine tune us, and only when we let Him lead us and guide us, live within us, and control our lives can we function fully as a child of God's and respond to God in the direction of His Will. We must always guard against too much of the wrong information, and not try to “cram” ourselves full with the worlds virus infected “downloads”. If we don’t guard ourselves against such things, and if we continue to misplace, and misdirect certain “files” of information, we too can become “sluggish”, burn out, and will eventually “freeze up”, and will no longer be responsive to God and His Will for us.

There is hope however. God can repair us, and all we need to do is allow him access to our “programs” and “files”, and allow Him to redirect the good ones and delete the ones that are corrupted and let Him reformat our hard-drives so that our systems function properly. With God as our technincian, we need not fear absolute and total system shut-down because He can repair:

“Our Corrupted Hard Drives”

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10.

God Bless!