I've had a bit of a job this morning! The postman delivered the new phone that I had ordered. You know what it's like when you order something online? They always try to sell you an 'add-on'... at a discounted price of course! This time they were offering a Wifi extender. The wifi in the vicarage is pretty hopeless, so I ordered one. I have tried everything to make it work...but the signal around the house is just too weak to detct my router.
The phone, on the other hand is great. It is one of those with two handsets and an answer machine and so much neater than the old ones. It also has room to store 1,000 contacts...how about that? I am still missing a lot of contact numbers of members of the congregation and am still working on compiling my list. Now I have the new phone, I going to make a concerted effort to put numbers into my phone rather than have a paper list...so much easier.
With God, communication is so much easier. He doesn't need any fancy gadgets to know who is calling, there's no signal failure or dropping calls. There's definitely no crackly phone lines and no language barrier when our voices take on a Dalek tone! There's also no calling plan where you have to time a call to get the best value. No...our God is on call 24/7. We can talk to him as long as we like and there are no penalties for going over our 'talktime' limit. Recently, as a church, we've been getting to grips with video calls. This is fantastic but what we've discovered is that you can only really make sense of a conversation if only one person talks at once. We've learnt that it works much better to unmute the person who needs to be heard. With God, there are no such rules. The conversation is a two-way thing. We might not be able to hear verbally what God is saying but by listening, as well as talking, things often become much clearer to us.
Prayer is a powerful thing. The problem that many people have though is that we don't always get what we ask for and our prayers go unanswered. I believe that our prayers do get answered and that we are always listened to and always answered. They may not always be how we like or when we like but God will respond. He is there with us...every step of the way. He understands...he's been there! When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Gone was the barrier between us mere mortals and God. Jesus Christ had broken down that barrier. Jesus has lived life on earth, complete with everything that comes with it... poverty, disease, inequality...you name it...he's been there. That's why we can talk to him openly without any judgement...no special equipment needed.
With God, communication is so much easier. He doesn't need any fancy gadgets to know who is calling, there's no signal failure or dropping calls. There's definitely no crackly phone lines and no language barrier when our voices take on a Dalek tone! There's also no calling plan where you have to time a call to get the best value. No...our God is on call 24/7. We can talk to him as long as we like and there are no penalties for going over our 'talktime' limit. Recently, as a church, we've been getting to grips with video calls. This is fantastic but what we've discovered is that you can only really make sense of a conversation if only one person talks at once. We've learnt that it works much better to unmute the person who needs to be heard. With God, there are no such rules. The conversation is a two-way thing. We might not be able to hear verbally what God is saying but by listening, as well as talking, things often become much clearer to us.
Prayer is a powerful thing. The problem that many people have though is that we don't always get what we ask for and our prayers go unanswered. I believe that our prayers do get answered and that we are always listened to and always answered. They may not always be how we like or when we like but God will respond. He is there with us...every step of the way. He understands...he's been there! When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Gone was the barrier between us mere mortals and God. Jesus Christ had broken down that barrier. Jesus has lived life on earth, complete with everything that comes with it... poverty, disease, inequality...you name it...he's been there. That's why we can talk to him openly without any judgement...no special equipment needed.
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus,
saw how he died, he said,
“Surely this man was the Son of God!”
And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus,
saw how he died, he said,
“Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Mark 15:37-39
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