We have two teenagers who have virtually been raised with personal computers. PCs have been an integral part of their lives since they were big enough to sit up at the keyboard.

They have played games on the computer, drawn pictures, listened to music, surfed the web and have done countless school projects over the past twelve years of their education. So why is it that they still come to me with much anxiety to announce, "I had my project almost finished and the computer crashed and I lost it all!"?

Now, I understand that as a caring father and a man of God that the proper response should be compassion and empathy. But how many times does it have to happen? And so I have come up with a response that doesn't do much for them but makes me feel better. Now when the come to me with sad stories of technological melt down and lost homework I simply place my hands on their shoulders, look them deep in the eyes, and in my most compassionate voice I intone, "Jesus saves and so should you."

The downside is that when I lose a file (incidentally, never my fault) I have to keep my mouth shut because I know there will be no sympathy from my offspring.

Most if not all of us have experienced that feeling of despair when all of a sudden we are confronted with the blue screen of death or an “irrecoverable error” message. That feeling is compounded with the sudden realization that it's been much too long since the last time you saved.

We all know that we need to periodically save our work, but the head knowledge doesn't translate to a heart knowledge until we lose three hours of work late Saturday night. And it's not the stupid computers fault, it’s not Bill Gates' fault and it's not the fault of Satan and his horde of cyber-demons. It is your fault because you didn't save your work. And as Billy Sunday once said: “Sin can be forgiven but stupid is forever.”

Fortunately, Microsoft must have an affinity for idiots because they keep making it easier to save our work and to recover that which we haven't saved. As soon as you have started your first PowerPoint slide, save your presentation. Do not hesitate, just do it. You have three options: you can click the little floppy disk icon at the top of the screen, or you can click File and then click Save or Save As, or you can simply press the ctrl key along with the S key.

If this is your initial save you will be prompted to enter a name for your presentation. If you have already named and saved your work this process will overwrite the original each time you save. Here's a suggestion… don't get cute. Select a name that will be easy to remember and is descriptive of your work. someday you might be looking for your file and you might not remember that whimsical name you used to tag your presentation.

(Article © Denn Guptill / PowerPoint4Preaching.com, used with permission)