Bad Things Happen | Newsletter #41
Luke Simmons's Forty-First Personal Newsletter
Introduction
Life is chaos.
No matter how much we do to try and control it, bad things still happen.
This is a challenge I’ve had to face especially head-on this week.
So, let’s begin.
What I’ve Created
Prototype business website. A good friend from church took me aside a few weeks back and asked if I would build a website for his upcoming landscaping business. I was more than happy to do it, but didn’t quite have the time in my schedule. Well, now I do! After finishing up NotReddit last week, I immediately began work on the site this week. All the basic features are there, but I need to polish the styling and get some more input from my friend before I call it finished.
You can check out the GitHub page here.
Instagram podcast reels. A big part of marketing my podcast Techincalls is creating clips from the show to share on various social media. This concept should not be new to anyone reading, however, I did make one big change in my production of them. In the past, I have only published them as YouTube Shorts. This week, I took it upon myself to post some on Instagram as reels. Not much else to it.
You can view the latest one as of writing here and the rest once they’re out here.
What I’ve Consumed
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Christianity & Liberalism by John Gresham Machen
Sherlock Holmes
Four Thousand Weeks. Since last week’s update, I have now finished Four Thousand Weeks! Five-star book in my humble opinion. Expect a full review coming very soon.
Christianity & Liberalism. A friend of mine recommended this book to me a number of months ago, and I feel slightly bad that I am only now getting around to it. So far the book is very insightful and quite prophetic. The book is a response to the “liberal Christian” movement of the 20th century. The simple message of the book is that Christianity and liberalism are two entirely different religions and cannot be mixed. I haven’t read a theological book in quite some time, so I look forward to working my way through this one.
Sherlock Holmes. Once again, not much to say about this one. I’ve been reading through the complete collection of the stories of Sherlock Holmes for close to a year now. It feels good to have worked through such a large volume (1077 pages to be exact), but I must say that I’m going to miss it once I’m done. After this, I will break into The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky with my sister as a sort of book club. I look forward to the read, although it will not be an easy one!
Not Man Enough. I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to a podcast some of my friends do called Not Man Enough. It’s a great show for some laughs and solid Biblical conversations. They’re super great guys and I can’t recommend their show enough. You can listen on Spotify here.
What went Well
Finished a book
Got started on the business website
Lower stress overall
Spent more time in prayer
I’ll just say two quick words about that last item.
One is that I believe faithful prayer is the greatest medicine a Christian can take. I have never felt more clarity about the Gospel and love for God and the people around me than while in prayer. It is also the first routine to go when I begin to slip. It’s a powerful thing and the Devil will do all he can to keep you from it. But take heart and pray.
Second, if any of you need any prayer, please reach out to me and let me know. I wish to help and serve anyone who possibly needs it. You can email me with any requests anytime at lordlucasjsimmons@yahoo.com.
What went Wrong
An ice cream disaster at work
Blowing my computer’s power supply
I think this picture speaks for itself regarding the first point.
In short, it wasn’t my fault!
As to the second point, on Wednesday night, we had a massive power outage in the night. We’re still not sure what caused it (maybe a car crash), but it knocked out the power for a good few hours.
The thing I wasn’t expecting was that the surge blew my computer’s power supply.
I was foolish enough to plug my over $1000 computer directly into the wall, resulting in almost frying the entire thing.
Thankfully, my uncle has been working with computers since they were the size of rooms, so he helped me diagnose the issue and get it resolved within 24 hours.
What I’m Taking Away
Bad things happen, that’s just life
What matters is responding with peace and gratitude to every situation, no matter how painful
Use a freaking surge protector
Conclusion
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read my humble little newsletter.
I truly appreciate all the kind words in response to my writing here.
I pray you all have a lovely weekend!
As always, I will write to you again next week.
God bless,
-Luke
Oh my goodness what a great and crazy ice cream picture!!! 🤣🤣