Wireless On

Panic Over

Technology often beats me. But this morning I’ve had a small success.

In the midst of checking emails on my laptop, I got a message saying that the wireless function had been turned off and I could no longer connect to the internet!

Now that is not the sort of message I enjoy getting. I immediately think of texting one of my sons and crying out, “Help!” But they’re all at work and I don’t want them to think I’m just hopeless. 

After investigating various things on the computer’s control centre and not seeing what I was looking for (like a simple ‘wireless ... on or off?’ button), I examined the outside of the laptop itself and what do you know? At the front there is a simple switch labelled Wireless – on / off. There it was. I obviously had bumped it as I shifted the laptop, and thought I was up the creek without a connection.

It’s easy to disconnect ourselves from our maker, too. Any number of things cause us to accidentally turn off our awareness and expectation that we can hear from God himself, personally. Doubts. Disappointments. Bitterness. Anger. Fear. Busyness. Disinterestedness. Guilt. Sin.

We shift our viewpoint imperceptibly and have made the switch from keeping an open mind and heart ready to receive what God wants to say to us today, to having spiritual earplugs in and the switch turned off.

And yet in this age in which we live, many people seek advice from the position of the stars in the sky, the tarot cards, crystals or whatever. So it isn’t as if everyone’s become very rational and denied their inner intuition and spiritual dimension. Why the deafness to God?

I wonder if it’s due to a wrong understanding of who God is. We have majored on the wrath and judgment of God and I think many folk just think of him as a divine statistician eager to keep a record of our wrongs and make us pay. But that’s not the God, Father of Jesus Christ, worshiped by Christians. The Bible says God is love, and that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. God is not keeping a tally of our sins. Confess them to him and his forgiveness is instant and it blots out the record, and you can start again with a clean sheet.

God is love. He doesn’t want anyone to be separated from him. He wants everyone to be part of his family. Jesus invites us into the intricate relationship of the Trinity, and the Holy Spirit makes our entry into that divine dance possible. 

Complicated and yet oh so simple. Just turn on your spiritual wireless and let him encourage you himself, assure you of his grace and give you his peace.