A Good Connection

A couple of years ago I received an iPod nano for Christmas.  It was one of my best Christmas gifts ever.  I love music.  Especially Christian music.  I listen to it frequently.  Whenever I’m in my car I listen to my Christian CD’s.  On Saturdays when I’m working around the house or out in the yard I listen to my iPod.  Every night when I take a shower I listen to a Christian CD in the bathroom.  Every night when I go to bed I plug in my earbuds and listen to Christian music on my Nano.  As I said, I love music.  A lot.

Lately, however, the original ear buds that came with my iPod haven’t been working very well.  I have to turn the volume on my iPod well over halfway to get much volume and I noticed that one earbud works better than the other one.  So yesterday when I was out at Walmart I decided to pick up a new set of earbuds.  For $9.  Blue.  My favorite color.  (Do you know that Amazon offers Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 Noise Isolating Earphones for $227.99!  Really?  Who's going to pay that much for a set of earbuds?  Not me!)  Anyway, I brought my new earbuds home and plugged them into my iPod before I went to bed last night.  Sheer joy.  I can now put the volume down to one-quarter and hear perfectly.  And out of both earbuds!  How much more I enjoyed listening to my music.

There is a spiritual lesson in this.  For lack of a better term, sometimes in the Christian life our ‘connection’ with God gets a little old.  Worn out.  The flow of power, peace and strength just isn’t what it used to be.  There are a number of reasons for this.  Busyness.  Sin.  Distractions.  Anyway, all of a sudden we notice that we’re not hearing God’s voice quite as clearly as we once did.  We have strain to hear anything.   What we do hear seems garbled.  Unclear.  It’s at times like these that we need to look at our connection.  Something’s wrong with it.  We need to repent and confess the sin that’s in our lives.  We need to slow down and plug in.  Read our Bibles once again.  Take some time for quality for prayer.  When we do, something amazing happens.  We begin to hear God speak to us again.  Loud and clear.  Words of comfort.  Challenge.  Peace.  Hope.

Isaiah 28:23 - “Listen and hear My voice; pay attention and hear what I say.”

Lord, there are times when I can’t seem to hear Your voice.  When you seem far away.  Distant.  When I can’t make out what it is that You are saying to me.  Help me to realize at times such as this that the problem is on my end of the line.  Give me the desire to remove any hindrances that have built up.  Help me to reestablish the connection between me and You.  To hear Your voice loud and clear.  In Jesus’ name, Amen,