The 8th of June saw a significant number of some of the most prestigious and popular websites taken offline when a company that provides part of the service that makes them available to customers had a problem. Sites like the UK Government website, several newspapers across the world, Amazon and lots more were taken offline, and their customers could not access them for around an hour.
A few websites being unavailable for an hour doesn’t sound like too much of an issue, but it made headline news displacing stories of Covid Variants, increasing infection rates and changes to the list of what countries you can go to on holiday. For some of my time each week, I work in IT and have a responsibility for keeping critical systems online and available. So, I understand the impact that this would have had on the businesses affected and their customers, but the media response reflected much more than this.
Consumers have a faith that, As surely as the sun rises, the website will be there when I go to it. The industry had placed its faith in the availability of the services that keep the internet working. This event called that faith into question.
We all place our faith in a range of things every day: The internet will work; my car will start and get me to work on time; the vaccine will protect me; my bank card will work when I pay, water will come out of the tap when I turn it on and overall, these things happen, and that faith seems well placed.
Every day I expect my loved ones to be there, every day I expect my job to carry on, every day I expect to jump out of bed fit and well, I expect to be able to afford to buy food, cook and eat it. When I get on a plane (I wish) I have faith the pilot knows how to fly, when I go to the doctors, I have faith the medicine will not harm me. On occasion, though things go wrong and when they do the consequence is dramatic.
The reality of the world is that very little is certain, and we must live with the uncertainty of some of the things we choose to place our faith in. I would love at this point to say that having faith in God takes all this uncertainty of life away, but I am afraid that would not be true (at least in my experience). What my faith in God does give me though is a certainty in some things, this certainty that God cares for me, that God will always be there, that God is unchanging and just. Hosea 6:3 says “Let’s strive to know the LORD. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.”. It is my faith in the certainty of God that lets me recognise and deal with the uncertainties of life and helps me cope when those things unravel and things go wrong, God’s certainty becomes my resilience.
What do you place your faith in?
I hope and pray that you have a good summer and get to rest and relax even if your holiday destination is no further than your own home.
