Usually comes as a real surprise then you find what has been holding you back. This morning, I got up to finish a little programming – just copying what was in a book. Yeah right! The program kept failing and giving me the strangest errors. Searched the web looking for a meaning for the errors. Looked at all kinds of error logs on the server. Read and re-read the books I had been working from. All to no avail. So, started from scratch, using another program written by someone else, and it worked. Well, the short story is that after many comparisons the problem was located. Someone (namely me) had typed a ‘;’ instead of the required ‘:’ at one point in the program. Changed that, and everything about it worked.
Kind of reminds me that proofreading your work is not a bad thing – nor is comparing it to the original. Had I done that, the problem would have been gone last night. This meshed with this mornings study in 1 Peter 5. His admonishment to “stand firm” points us to knowing what we believe and letting that be our shield. Also in verse 8, made me vividly remember watching “Animal Planet” and seeing how lions attack. When problems come, we need to be prepared – to have something for defense. God’s Word would be a very good start.