Sometimes that’s how I feel as someone who tries to follow Christ.

Like a Mac that’s really not intrinsically different from a PC – circuits, power supplies, hard drives, rewritable drives, keyboard, mouse, monitor – I’m not particularly different from anyone else in the world.

In some ways, I’m gifted differently. I have a whole different operating system. There are some things that come easier. Others are more difficult.

Not all programming is meant for me. (Particularly TV programming, although I handle it well enough and better than some.) Some programming simply isn’t executable, even when I’m trying to emulate another operating system.

I’m in the minority. Oh, there are a lot of others that have similar abilities and claim to operate in the same way. Some of them come really close … but they don’t claim to wear the image of the bitten apple; they kinda pretend that they’ve never crashed nor had any imperfection/fallibility that a bitten apple would represent.

And while I’m not immune to a lot of the stuff that would wipe me out if it got to me, I feel better protected and try very hard to be stable, reliable, productive, helpful, easy to interface with.

Error reporting is optional, rather than mandatory, for me … but I try to be as error-free as possible.

There’s something about my design that makes me want to set the bar a little higher, when most else around simply accepts the status quo as good enough, and the creator wouldn’t listen to complaints or suggestions anyway.

I try to be as flexible – even hot-swappable – as I can be; as clear and crisp in my presentation as possible and as transparent in my operating system as open code.

Yet I do crash. Sometimes memory fails. Occasionally I fall prey to an attack from a worm or some other nastiness. And, just like any other, I have to re-boot. I have to run my diagnostics and make my repairs and launch my protection.

Not that different.

I’m even susceptible to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. But even that is different.

In that extremity, words of kindly instruction flash across my visage and I have a really good shot at coming back to life …

… in the right Hands.

Unfortunately, I don’t always network well outside of my own brand, even though I should. Sometimes my communication is garbled, because I use proprietary terms or protocols. I’m better at it than I used to be.

But I still have a long way to go.