I’ve always had a love affair with typewriters. One of the first things I bought in college was a portable Olympia. It was built like a tank. Because I am a fast and accurate typist, I made quite a bit of money typing term and research papers for fellow students.

As our kids began to grow up, I started looking for good deals on used typewriters. I managed to acquire half a dozen really fine machines. I had one that would handle an 8 1/2 by 14 inch stencil SIDEWAYS!

A funny thing happened on the way to grown-up life for our children. Who could have predicted that computers would become available to just about anyone with a few bucks? By the time Mark was finishing high school, he bought a Commodore 64 computer. That machine got him through college. Bottom line? None of our kids ever took one of the typewriters I’d carefully stockpiled and preserved in one of the closets.

In a recent conversation with my mother, one of the bright spots of her life was that she’d found a typewriter repairman who’d put her old typewriter in A-1 condition. She was happily banging away on, of all things, a typewriter.

One of the major differences between a typewriter and a computer is that words can be changed, added, or deleted without first printing the document.

Didn’t you hate it in school when you’d get an entire page typed for English class and then discover that you’d made a typo in the last line? And the teacher wouldn’t allow the use of correcting tape or a stick with an eraser on one end and a brush on the other? There are a lot of other differences, too.

Just about every computer program has a menu selection that says “delete”. On my PowerMac, after I’ve selected “delete”, I get at least two opportunities to change my mind. A magic box comes up and says, “Are you sure you want to delete this…?” After I say “yes”, another box usually pops up. It says, “This operation is unredoable.” After the program has given me sufficient and dire warning, it will delete the selected item(s) for me!

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not! It’s not that my computer or program wants to lie to me. It’s just that things aren’t always as they seem. Many people have erased/deleted personal, sometimes intimate, even embarrassing messages from the hard drive at their office only to discover that someone has recovered them. Spies, crooked government workers, and some politicians have discovered, often to their dismay, that material they were sure was gone forever wasn’t gone forever.

Here’s how it happens. One can “delete” or “erase” something from a hard drive and it no longer appears in the data folder. However, it stays on the hard drive, hidden from one’s sight, until new data is written to the disk and actually replaces the old data. Only then is the old stuff actually gone, deleted, and erased.

What are the Life Lessons in this piece?

• Many times in our lives, we get into bad habits, do dumb, stupid things, and hurt our friends, family members, co-workers, fellow church members, etc.
• We also neglect pursuing those things that God teaches us would enhance and improve our lives.
• In other words, we err by commission and omission. In Romans 7:15, the Apostle Paul stated, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.”
• What’s the solution to this paradox?
  1. Just deleting bad behavior, attitudes, etc. may not be enough.
  2. The best approach may be to replace the bad things with good things.
  3. By “writing over” the old data, we can truly delete or erase it.

Conclusion:

I realize that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. However, He didn’t come just to save us FROM sin, He came to save us FOR a life of holiness, Godliness, and good works.

Don’t ever be satisfied just to escape some future punishment as good a goal as that is. Let us seek after Him with our whole hearts and pursue accomplishing those things for which He’s already selected us. Let Him replace sorrow with joy, sadness with happiness, sinful behavior with righteous living. Does this seem like a tall order? It is! Only He can do all things!

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