How's Your Reception

Have you ever thought about how frustrated God must feel when He calls out to us and gets no response? 

Most of us have a cell phone these days, and we have all learned about calls being dropped or the phone can not receive calls because we are out of area.

If you were to call your cell phone carrier you might hear something like this.

  "A cellular phone works by sending out and receiving radio waves from a cell tower.  When you are at a point on the road that dips and forms a small valley, and the radio waves can not reach down into the dip for you to receive the signal.  Another possibility is that your message was being blocked by a large building.  You have to make sure your battery is powered up and charged." "And was the antenna up?" (This was when cell phones actually had antennae.)  Sometimes you can send a call out but can't receive one because it takes more call strength to receive a call, than to send one." 

It can be frustrating to use your cell phone at times, but consider other transmissions that we can have trouble receiving from time to time.  The bible says,  that the Lord speaks to His sheep and His sheep hear His voice.  But why do we have so much trouble hearing from God?  Could it be the same reasons that we have poor reception with a cell phone?

If we're having trouble hearing from God, we have to ask ourselves the same questions that the technical assistant would ask.  Are we  in a dip in the road?  Sometimes a valley of depression can clog our spiritual ears in such a way that we don't hear His gentle voice coaxing us to higher ground.  Then, we need to start singing praises like David did in the Psalms and watch Him turn our valley into a level path. 

Have we erected walls that are blocking God's signals: walls of materialism, selfish ambition, or religion?  If so we need to tear them down.  Is our battery pack powered up?  If not, we need to plug into the Word and get recharged.  Is our antenna raised or have we put it down like the Israelites who, because of fear, told Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen.  But do not have God speak to us."  If we want to hear from Him, we need to make sure our spiritual antenna is up and that we are waiting to hear His voice.

Finally, why is it that we can sometimes place a call but often have trouble receiving one?  We can go before the Lord at any time and He hears us.  Though it doesn't take more power to receive a message from Him, it does take more effort on our part to be receptive.  In our fast-paced world, it takes more effort to be still and listen than it does to speak.  But we need to realize that what God has to say to us is much more important than anything we have to say to Him. 

What we should realized is that hearing from Him is more than just receiving; it is also about making sure we are receptive to hear Him.