I didn’t even notice what was happening. It happened so slowly, so innocently that I was oblivious to its insidious nature. Something so simple, yet the ramifications were enormous…
We were in Ottawa visiting our son David. We had enjoyed a fabulous day together sharing in his new found love for this beautiful city. We were now enjoying a great dinner out at a hip burger joint – an Ottawa favourite.
We had ordered some cold beverages that sat right in front of us on the table. Condensation began to form on the outside of the glasses. It then began to ever-so-slowly creep down the sides of the glasses onto the table. As if on command, the water droplets found each other, formed up into a deadly army and pooled at what I assume was a slightly lower point on the table.
That slightly lower point on the table just happened to be where I had placed my phone face down. The water surrounded my phone and soaked into the screen.
The water killed my phone.
Yes, I put it in a bowl of rice to dehydrate it. Yes I left it off. No, it did not recover.
Simultaneously another calamity was stocking me on our trip…
May laptop – now my trusty communicational backup for email and internet access – was about to suffer a similar fate.
My power cord was not connecting properly with my mother board to charge my battery. The power cord was working fine, it was a problem inside the computer. Sometimes it would charge, other times it would not. Then, on the next leg of our holiday, it quit charging all together. Finally, the battery died and I had no computer access at all.
No phone, no computer. I was completely incommunicado.
Picture that: what would life look like for you if you had no cell phone or computer? Maybe you would be fine, but I was utterly dependent on them and was now hooped.
I don’t know any phone numbers – they are all programmed in my phone. Email is a primary form of communication for me – I now had no access. Texting – nada. I felt like I was trapped in a foreign country with no knowledge whatsoever of the language. The only person in the whole world I could communicate with was my wife who was with me. (Which was not such a bad thing.)
We decided we could live that way for the duration of our trip, but I would certainly have to immediately solve this issue once we returned home.
I began to realize that I was more acutely aware of the pain of being technologically incommunicado, than spiritually incommunicado.
How often am I spiritually incommunicado and don’t even realize it? I keep moving on in life not recognizing that I am out of touch with the Lord. I am not connecting with Him in prayer, I am not connecting with Him through His Word. I am doing life in my own strength, not in His.
It’s a pretty sorry situation when I am more concerned about losing all my technology that I am with losing daily communication with the Lord. Sadly it’s fairly easy to become incommunicado with the Lord. We think we are too busy to make time to spend with Him. We get distracted with the things of life and don’t connect with the source of our life. We chase after the things of this world, and don’t purse the one who made this world.
The Lord wants us to be in ongoing communication with Him. He wants us to remain in Him, to find our life in Him. He wants us to be deeply rooted in His Word and in His presence. He wants us to be men of Truth, filled with faith and the Holy Spirit.
Like Keith Green said, “He is divine and we are debranch.” We have to stay connected with Him.
We have to be in communication, not incommunicado, with Him.
Let’s be men who realize we have no life apart from the Lord. Let’s be men who choose to remain in Him, in communication not incommunicado.
Are you incommunicado? Remain in Him.
John 15:4-8
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”