broken ibookFor what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels The record shows I took the blows and did it my way [“My Way” P. Anka, J. Revaux, G. Thibault, C. Frankois]

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. [“Trust and Obey” John H. Sammis, Daniel B. Towner]

I bought an Apple iBook last year. I really enjoyed using it and became a Mac convert. For awhile.

After about four and a half months, horrors. The LCD screen cracked. I was opening the note book to use one evening and the screen cracked. A diagonal crack from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner.

No problem. It was still within the warranty period. So I brought it back to the shop. To be told that the one year warranty did not cover screen cracks. (This was never told to me.)

I was told that the screen cannot crack. If it cracked I must have dropped it. Or dropped something heavy on it. But screens do not crack. And therefore the warranty does not cover cracked screens.

It would cost me about 1/3 the purchase price to replace the screen.

I said, “hello, I have been using notebooks since you were a gleam in your father’s eye. I have used a Fujitsu, a Gateway, and an IBM before and I have never had a screen crack on me . And I know for a fact that the notebook was sitting on my desk and the screen cracked when I opened the cover.?

The reply came: “sorry, rules are rules.”

I tried begging. I told them I was a poor church worker. Please take pity on me. That didn’t work. (I guess poor church workers wouldn’t be using Apples to begin with.)

Then the famous Soo Inn temper began to flare. I threatened to besmirch the name of Apple through my mailing list. I threatened to call my lawyers. I threatened to bring my case to the consumers tribunal. I huffed and I puffed. To no avail. I can’t remember if I prayed.

But soon it was the Christmas period and all those in church related vocations had their hands full telling people about God’s grace. So I didn’t have the time or the energy to carry through any of my threats.

In the meantime I went back to the dark side. I went back to my trusty ThinkPad.

Winter turned into Spring and No. 1 son started university. He needed a notebook. I passed him the ThinkPad. I went back to my desktop.

One day I was rummaging through my cupboard when a familiar white notebook caught my eye. Yup, it was the damaged iBook. It was past the warranty period. I didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. But perhaps changing a screen would still cost less than getting another notebook.

I decided to go all the way to the top. I decided to see the head honcho of the Apple people in Malaysia. Oh yes, I decided to pray as well.

Mr. Head Honcho was very helpful. He said the first thing I needed to do was to call the Apple call centre and report what had happened. They would give me a case number. I was to bring the number to him and he would see what he could do. He would try to get me a discount on a new screen. I thought this was ok since it was past the one year warranty period.

(The guys from the shop where I bought the iBook didn’t tell me anything about calling the Apple centre and gave me no encouragement to see the head honcho of Apple Malaysia.)

I did as I was told. The chaps from the official Apple workshop were friendly as well. They picked up my iBook and saved me a trip to Kuala Lumpur.

Two weeks later I received word. The head honcho had managed to get me a one time free replacement deal. I would get my new screen for free.

Many lessons here. The primary one is the need to trust God. And to pray as a first option. As our primary option.

No wonder Jesus said blessed are the poor (Luke 6:20). The poor do not know how to work the system. The poor do not have many lawyer friends. The poor cannot afford lawyers. Therefore they can only trust God. They get a lot of practice trusting God.

If you are middle class and more, if you have some of the world’s goods, if you have some degree of formal education — you know your rights. You know how the system works. You have a number of lawyer friends you can count on.

And so when confronted with a crisis, you turn to your worldly resources. You try to work the system. You huff and you puff. And often you forget to pray.

The meta sin underneath all sin is the sin of an independent spirit, the fatal illusion that we do not really need God. We can work out our lives on our own.

Which is not to say that we are to be passive and do nothing. When the Israelites reached the promised land, they had to work the land for their food. But they knew that all good things ultimately come from God. They had learnt it during the long years in the desert (Exodus 16: 34-35).

Often God will call us to colabour with Him. No, we are not called to passivity as such. It is more a stance of the heart. We are called to trust Him at all times for all things. And a key way this trust is expressed is through prayer (Philippians 4:6).

There was also another lesson here. I learnt that the Apple head honcho was a brother in Christ. He only revealed this in his last email to me. I had sent him an email to thank him for his help. He replied that he was glad to be able to help a brother in Christ. Talk about showing your faith through your works (James 2:18).

He had been Christian in how he had handled my case. I had not been Christian in how I had initially tried to solve my problem.

I need to say that my romantic enthusiasm for Apple has been tempered somewhat. I am grateful that I can use my iBook again.

But the whole incident was a God given modern parable. I needed to learn, yet again, that I needed to trust and obey. I should have gone all the way to the top from day one. And I mean all the way.

Your brother, Soo-Inn Tan