Anyhow, the internet was playing up. So Keith phoned BT and ordered a new hub. Which arrived fairly quickly and we all breathed a sigh of relief and looked forward to hassle -free surfing. No such luck. The new hub seemed to be no better than the old one. Booooooooo. Keith kept moving the hub round the house - wires trailing all over the place - trying to get a better signal. In the end I went to Argos and bought a booster box. And lo and behold! We now have a perfect signal . Yay!!I have always thought that listening to God is a bit like being tuned into a radio signal. Everyone has the ability to hear Him. It's just that not all of us are tuned in. When we get saved God tunes us into His channel so that we can start to receive His messages of life and hope and direction. The Bible suddenly starts to make sense to us. We begin to recognise the Holy Spirit - what He sounds like and how He speaks to us. But every now and again, just like my internet signal, we seem to lose the frequency. Or we suffer from interference and we cant hear so well any more. What is it which causes us to lose that vital connection with God?
Well the Bible tells us that sin is what separates us - so initially thats a good place to look. Is there something in my life which is standing between me and God such that I cant hear His voice so clearly any more? Am I being dishonest , unfaithful, jealous, proud, greedy, unkind, and all the rest. If we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive us and wipe the slate clean again. Retune us back into His frequency. It's not usually the small daily sins which cause major interference - its the sin which sneaks up on us and convinces us that it's OK. That we are right. That there isnt a problem. We are subtly de-tuned, just enough to lose the signal almost without our realising it. We need to be vigilant and ruthless with ourselves if we want an open sky above us.
Sometimes I think other things can also block the channels. Things outwith our control - external forces. I remember spending time praying with a friend of mine who was a doctor and was suffering from some health problems. In the course of the conversation with him it became apparent that he had many many dealings with death and the dying in the course of his hospital work. And that this was affecting him adversely. Death was all around him pretty much all day. Like a dark fog it was stopping him from being able to receive all that God had for him. We prayed protection and wisdom for him and he became aware that he had to wash himself spiritually clean at the end of every shift just to keep those channels open and flowing freely . Sometimes its nothing like as heavy duty as that. It's just stuff. I remember when the game Tetris came out I got addicted to it for a while - and it most certainly de-tuned me. My head was full of coloured cubes to the point where I could barely think of anything else. I stopped playing. And got my life and my hearing back :)God speaks. All the time. In many ways. As we see in the Nativity story sometimes its through hosts of angels, sometimes its through dreams and visions. More often than not its through the Scriptures. But if we aren't tuned in no matter how often we read the words we won't hear the message. So this Christmas let's take time to listen. And if we arent hearing anything let's ask God to tune us back in and to deal with any interference which is blocking the signal.
No comments:
Post a Comment