Have you been unable to connect to the internet lately and had this screen (see above) pop up?

For me it is an extremely common occurrence. Partly because I live in Dawesville which only just had deep sewerage put through in some parts let alone the NBN. But mostly because I use my phone tethering for all home internet use as I a) have unlimited data on my phone plan and b) I am apparently the only one in Australia right now not wanting to download Game of Thrones.

The thing is though, my carrier is Vodafone and (this is not a ranty customer complaint) they can drop out from time to time. But don’t think Telstra is any better down here.

So yeah, I get this screen a lot.

However, the last one million times I have seen this screen I simply press the red ‘x’ at the top right and go back to the desktop to re-click on google chrome to start-up the browser again.

I have done this because I have assumed that there’s nothing here, it’s just a little boring black and white notice screen right?

…….and then tonight, I accidentally pressed the ‘spacebar’ and everything changed. My world got a little brighter.

Go on, off you go. I know you want to give it a try now. I’ll let you switch off your wi-fi for a little bit and then I’ll see in about 5 mins time. Or in a few hours, depending on your personality.

****

Oh, hi you’re back! (Or you knew all along and you’re thinking “seriously, he only just found out about this?”)

Wasn’t that cool though?

I love stuff like this and it joins the ever-growing list of creative and funky ‘error 404’ pages out there on the internet. But it also made me have a quick think about how I treat inconveniences these days. I treat them like inconveniences (duh) but virtually never opportunities. Do you know why? Because most of the time….

I’m busy.

This is because I so easily fall into the trap of scheduling our lives to the point where if it’s not ‘in our day, it’s in our way’. But that’s kind of not really how life works. Neither should it.

From a biblical perspective, Lamentations talks about a God “whose blessings are new every morning.” But if you have to admit that this is a strange place in the Bible to be talking about the blessings of God.

Here’s Jeremiah, a prophet of God whose country, whose people and their entire way of life has been conquered and led of in chains to exile in Babylon. They’ve lost the temple, they’ve lost the city, they’ve lost their freedom….they’ve lost the lot.

Ain’t no schedule anymore. They’ve gone from ‘busy-ness as usual’ to searching for the ‘magic space bar’.

Sometimes life has to be turned upside down, shaken up like a snow globe and poured out all over the place before our schedule is blown enough to smithereens for us to notice the million little blessings that come our way each day. That are indeed new every morning.

What if patience and curiosity are inextricably linked? What if only when we have the patience to say no to the urgent but unnecessary, do we finally create space in life for curiosity?

Curiosity may have killed the cat but it has saved many a soul.

One of them I know particularly well. He walked of the street into Bentley Baptist Church many years ago after hearing the noise of the activity inside. He became a part of that youth ministry and to cut a long story short, he is one of the most influential Christian voices in my life today.

****

We find it hard to be attentive and curiosity is squashed when it’s ‘business as usual’, perhaps even more so when we feel like everything is peachy. Maybe that’s why Ravi Zacharias said “far more people been destroyed by success than by failure.”

Let’s not assume things are in our way if they are not in our ‘day’.

Let’s be aware, create space for our God-given curiosity to work lest it takes ‘the invasion of the Babylonian empire (yes I am using a loaded 21st century Christian buzzphrase) for us to become aware of God’s blessing every single day.

Bless ya:)

Again and again and again……..