Let’s say that we’re writing a document using Microsoft Word. We wish to save it so that we can come back later and finish. We know that there is an icon, a picture that represents something, for saving documents. If we click on that icon, we know that we won’t lose that document.
Quick! What is that icon a picture of? It was once a real, physical thing.
Right. A 3.5” floppy disk.
Most likely fewer than half of the people reading this today have ever seen one of these. Or even know what an advancement they were over 5.25” floppy disks, which were, in turn better than the 10” ones. But then came CDs (with video, DVD), USB “thumb drives”, and then simply links to directly download from a Web site.
Two weeks ago at a trade show, a marketing guy gave me a thumb drive with the company’s press kit on it. None of my computers have a hole big enough to fit that sucker into. I once had to carry thick bundles of paper and photos from a trade show. Now, just give me a link, I say. Totally did away with the need to travel with a briefcase.
But the picture of the 3.5” floppy disk remains in many of our computer applications.
This morning I contemplated—how many things in our lives are we carrying over from the past that no longer have meaning? Things? Ideas? Relationships?
Is it time to move on in our lives? Time to relegate certain things to the past and embrace today?
The Apostle Paul once said something like, when I was a child, I thought like a child, but then I became a man and put away childish things.
Someone recently remarked to me that reading through social media is much like revisiting conversations of 13-year-olds. Many of us need to put aside childish things and become mature. We may not want to admit that to ourselves, but it is true.
Faith Venture 
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