S05E002, Keyboards, Errors and Change, Andy B 2 Minute Video
For my birthday, recently, my family bought me a new keyboard for our ministry computer. It’s an amazing thing because it is ergonomic. While the layout of the keys may be what you’d expect, the layout of the whole of the keyboard certainly is not. And, as someone who has done an awful lot of typing, this is no easy switch!!
I remember doing a computer course on how to use a mouse. They were brand new and I had never before seen such an odd looking thing before. I thought it was a stupid idea. Well, I was fairly young!
To be fair, I don’t use a mouse now - if I can avoid it - and have a trackball mouse instead. This stays put and your thumb moves around it to move the cursor on the screen – it has saved much wrist strain because it is also ergonomic and flows with the natural position of your hand and arm, rather than forcing an odd kink to occur so you can use it.
With change comes the need to learn something new too. If you swap something ‘like for like’, then you’re golden. But, even swapping from my laptop to a spare PC we have - with a standard keyboard - can be a serious challenge as different buttons are in slightly different locations. And, well, I can type pretty fast. With greater speed comes greater errors when it goes <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">wor</span>, <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">wg</span>, <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">wrg</span>, wrong…
In our walk with God we need to embrace change too. But, with that change, we need to ensure that we don’t fear the mistakes that often accompany such change. Mistakes are part of life, just as much as the successes.
However, once you decide to follow Jesus you have, by default, committed yourself to a lifelong journey of change. You simply can’t become a Christian, and then just wait for heaven. It simply doesn’t work that way. Once you start following Jesus, and seeking to become more like Him, you realise - as you become more like Him - just how much you need to become like Him, and so often, and how much more you desire to become more like Jesus and so on.
The life of a Christian is to always embrace change – that is the first step towards Jesus, and it is every step thereafter. But, what a journey it is because the more you change, the more at peace you become with the life you are living, because that life you are living becomes ever more Jesus centred and Jesus filled.
Just a thought...
Andy B
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Transcript
Andy 0:06
So, another Andy B 2 Minute Video, our second of the brand new series, which is kind of exciting! And it's all about change today. What have I called it? I'm looking at my computer! Keyboards, Errors and Change. Why have I called it this? Well, it's very specific.
Andy 0:21
I mentioned in the last episode that we've had a new computer, which is an amazing blessing. But, one of the things that's carried over from our old computer, to our new computer, is everything else. So the monitors, the keyboard, the mouse, all stayed the same. Same printers. The desk it's sitting on, that's changed. We've got various desks in our house, we've had a bit of a shuffle around, that's now on a different desk. But I had a new keyboard for my birthday.
Andy 0:45
Now, I love playing the keyboard. I've been a worship leader since I was the age of 10. So that's about 35 years of leading worship in churches. I love keyboards, but this is a computer keyboard. This is one you type on, and I had it for my birthday.
Andy 0:58
Now it wasn't all that cheap. It wasn't a basic one. But I do a lot of work at the computer. And so we kind of felt, as a family, it'd be good if I had a reasonably good computer, and a reasonably good keyboard, there's no point in having all this great stuff if you can't type very well. And I've found myself with wrist ache and I'm always sitting at this thing, for so many hours a day. So we decided that we should invest in me, for a keyboard.
Andy 1:20
Now we're all going to benefit from this. Various people have tried this keyboard, and we all enjoy it. But it's not like a keyboard you might think. It isn't a standard rectangular block on my desk! It's actually an ergonomic keyboard, which means it's split in the middle, and the left hand side and the right hand side are actually slightly angled. It's also contoured. So when you put your hand down, it actually keeps your arms straight, rather than have a bit of a weird kink. So, you can type when you're not doing very well. So this is brilliant, and it's really, really good.
Andy 1:49
But here's the thing about this new, ergonomic, keyboard, it's taken me some time to learn how to use it. It's the same the Qwertyup design, the keys that you press are in the same place. The P, the Q, the M, the S. But, they're slightly rotated, and they're slightly angled down, which is brilliant! I've had no muscle strain in my wrists at all.
Andy 2:11
But I'm making loads of mistakes. And this is the thing when we're with Go. Sometimes there's a better way of doing something. But, in order to get to that better place, that better way, we make mistakes. Don't discount the mistakes and think 'Oh that's it, it's rubbish let's not, let's forget about it.'
Andy 2:24
When I switched to a trackball mouse, so, you don't move it around, you move your thumb around the mouse instead. The mouse stays put. Well, that took me ages. I made loads of mistakes. I wanted to throw it out the window. But, as I learned to use it, it got everything so much better. It's the same with my new keyboard. It's just wonderful!
Andy 2:41
Don't expect everything to go great when you make changes. And don't worry about mistakes.
Andy 2:46
Just a thought.