I was on the phone the other day, trying to reach someone in my area code, who still lived quite a distance away. I was wondering if it would work, but I dialed the number without a 1 in front of it or the area code. Then I heard a beep, and a (female) mechanical voice : "Your call did not go through as dialed. You must dial '1' before the number."
Fine. So I dialed "1" and then the rest of the phone number. Then: another beep, and a slightly different (but still female) mechanical voice warned me, "Your call did not go through as dialed. You do not need to dial a '1' before the number." But I thought...
This has probably happened to you. I was fast becoming a part of that old "Who's on First" Abbott and Costello routine. Well, I tried both ways again, and each time got the same response. I even dialed 1 and then the full area code and then the number...still the beep, followed by the Mechanical Voice of Denial (but what I really hate is that beep).
I sometimes tell myself to calm down in these situations. After all, if we didn't have phones at all we couldn't communicate nearly as well as we do. What's a little inconvenience?
So I dialed the operator for help. I tried really hard to explain to her my dilemma. She asked me to repeat myself and I did, this time describing it even better. After a few more seconds, she seemed a bit distressed and said, "I'm sorry, the connection is weak...." and she hung up on me. Yeah, the connection is weak all right....
Sometimes we wonder if the connection is weak between us and God. We sometimes want to know why we aren't getting through to God. Is it something I have done? Am I not praying as I should? Do I not properly understand what's going on? Maybe God has it in for me. Or maybe...God doesn't do things like...help people.
In my down times I sometimes remember Romans, Chapter Eight. The 8th chapter of Romans has a lot of great stuff in it. Paul gives us the Gospel in so many wonderful and powerful ways in that single chapter. I always recommend it to people to read. For instance, he says "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)
So I guess the Apostle Paul thinks God and His followers cannot be separated. That's very good to know. But WITHIN that UN-separatedness, how is our connection with God made stronger? Paul says, again in Romans 8, that "likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." (Rom. 8:26)
Hey, that's great news! Due to our "faith connection" -- a connection that, purely for Jesus' sake, makes us "saints" -- Paul adds that "God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Rom. 8:27) The Spirit intercedes for you and me! The Spirit of God translates our poor prayers into pure eloquence, eloquence that reaches deep into the Father's own heart.
You see, we knew Jesus was for us. Now we know the Spirit is for us. And that all leads to knowing that "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Rom. 8:31) God will help us make all the necessary connections we need to make in our life...but on His time, according to His not necessarily ours.
By the way, I used the Spirit of patience in the midst of my phone problems. I tried the operator again, and got a different one. She was very, very helpful. She got me over my barrier. In that respect, she was like the Spirit of God.
David Hewitt
