HD-DVD is dead... long live the King.

So. Toshiba announced last week that they will cease production of their HD-DVD players, abandoning the format altogether and acknowledging that Sony's Blu-Ray format has won the war. And I'd only just bought a Toshiba HD-DVD player back in January. Darnit. My brother-in-law, very helpfully, counselled me to "accidentally" break it and ask Toshiba for my money back (perish the thought that he'd ever actually say such a thing, so unlike him :-))(and I haven't by the way). Instead, I'm looking on the bright side: I should be getting some cheap Hi-Def movies from the likes of Play.com and HMV shortly. See? It's not all bad.

But it did get me thinking. The world we live in is so much more than just skin and bone, metal and plastic, bread and water. There's a spiritual realm that contains a constant, current battle around us and so many forget or simply don't realise. I'm not going to go off on a "Matrix" analogy, don't worry (!), but how many people live solely in a world that will always die and fade away? The money we earn, the houses we buy/rent/paint, the gadgets we play with, the careers we build, the bands we listen to. It's stuff. And stuff is destined to die.

I've been greatly challenged by a book I'm halfway through reading - Bill Johnson's "When Heaven Invades Earth" - and realised that once again I'd been compartmentalising my life by stealth into two quarters: God's Kingdom and the world outside. Every now and again I need another poke in the ribs to stop doing that and realise that this faith I have - that Jesus Christ is alive and well, that all things were made through Him and for Him, that He, through His unimaginably horrible death and His mind-blowing resurrection has paved the way for me to live forever reconciled with God, far beyond this decaying life into eternity - is relevant for every single part of my life, not just "church" stuff and occasional opportunities to share my belief with friends and family. Bill Johnson reminds us who believe that the Holy Spirit can have dynamite power (the Greek "dynamis" is one word used to describe God's power in the Bible; the Holy Spirit's work is dynamite!) in each and every aspect of our lives. Darnit, why does my little brain keep forgetting that? I do know it really, I always do, but still it slips regularly from my thinking...

So, I put it into practice. I bumped into a mate of mine yesterday with whom I'd previously had opportunities to share my faith in some small way, and he'd even opened up about his depression before. I'd offered to remember him in prayer, and he'd appreciated it. And I had. But yesterday, good ol' Bill Johnson was on my mind when I saw my pal outside his place of work, so I immediately began praying under my breath while I sauntered over, speaking in tongues, inviting the Holy Spirit into the situation and asking Him to guide me and demonstrate God's reality to my friend. He was hunched over his car with the engine running, bonnet up, scratching his head. He informed me he'd been having some problems with it, and had also had no heating inside for some weeks. He jumped into the driver's seat to demonstrate; I promptly stuck my head under the bonnet and asked God to fix the heating right there and then.

"It's working!" shouted my mate. "I've got heat!"

Thank You, Lord... "Do you want to make the most of this?" I asked him. "Want me to pray for anything else?"

"You could pray for my depression," he replied. So I did; we jumped into the (warm!) car and I laid hands on him, asking God to lift my pal's spirit, to show Himself to him, and commanded the depression to go in Jesus' Name. I must admit, we did start having a good laugh afterwards...

It's not the be all and end all; I'm expecting bigger things the next time I have a decent chance to chat with him again. But he came away from that moment with a tangible realisation that there's more to this life than what we merely see with our eyes. Praise God.

So, HD-DVD is dead. But my King lives and I'm intending to live more and more in the light of that. And get a few cheap discs while I'm at it too.