Right from the beginning of the COVID 'lockdown' we were able to move the ministry of our church online. For over six months we have relied, in the beginning completely and latterly a little less, on the internet to gives us the means to carry on meeting. Even now, meeting as we are at our church building for Sunday morning services, we are still using Zoom for our other meetings. We are also livestreaming the morning service for those unable to attend in person. I can't imagine us having been able to do this even a year or two back as the technology may well not have been sufficiently robust for such widespread and regular use by so many at the same time. On the whole, it has been extremely reliable and we have had few problems but, just yesterday, we had some glitches with Zoom itself and also some internet-related issues. It was a reminder that the technology is not perfect and cannot be 100% trustworthy.

And so it is with all the endeavours of human beings! No matter how well-intentioned our efforts may be, we always are going to run into problems of reliability, or mistakes, or failures. Sadly, we may come across deliberate wrongdoing that plays havoc with our plans and efforts. One way or another, nothing we do or make will ever be 100% reliable. For that to happen, we would have to be all-wise and all-powerful, which of course we are not. We all know it yet we constantly make the mistake of being so confident in ourselves, or in others, or in mankind in general, and assume that we can and will work it out, whatever the issue. The pandemic throws the point into relief - we believe that we can solve it somehow. May be we will - but may be we won't. Whether we do or not is not really the point. The point ought to be that we should learn - at last - some humility and give up thinking too highly of ourselves and relying on our fallible endeavours. Instead, we should repent of our self-centredness, rely on the Lord God for salvation and look to His wisdom and goodness to guide us through this life safely and into the life to come. He alone is all-wise and all-powerful, utterly reliable, infallible and abundantly kind.