Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. John 6:67-68
“I’m sorry. I’m having trouble understanding you right now.” Now if you are married that is something you just might hear occasionally. My wife Judy and I have been married for 45 years and it has been a great adventure. They say after you have been with someone for so long you start completing each other’s sentences and can almost read the other person’s mind. I think that is true. But every once in a while…well…I miss it or she misses it and we look at each other like a “calf at a new gate.” That means like a young calf who has never gone through a particular gate and says, “I’m not sure I like this or understand this.” Calf.At.A.New.Gate.
Well, the other woman who lives in our house is named Alexa. Actually, we have several of them and we can tell her what to do and she does it. We have several items in our home that are wirelessly controlled. For example, our thermostat can be controlled from anywhere we can get an internet signal. I can tell Alexa, “Alexa set upstairs thermostat to 80” and she does it. Boom. I also have some of the lights in our home that have a “thingy” that will allow me to control them with Alexa. I just say, “Alexa, turn on the lights” and all the lights in the room come on. That is especially good at night when you are getting into bed, and you don’t want to catch your toes on the corner of something because you can’t see.
We also recently put our satellite TV account on hold. We are trying the “cut the cord” thing and streaming our TV through the internet. It is definitely cheaper and cleaner…if you follow my drift. All this is just great until…wait for it…the internet goes down. That happened recently. I woke up and groggily walked into my home office and asked Alexa to turn on the lights. She said, “I’m sorry. I’m having trouble understanding you right now.” That is code for there is no internet. That also means that I can’t watch the weather or anything else. Oh, and I also can’t control the thermostat…I have to actually walk over and turn it up or down. Then you add to that list that you can’t check or send email, can’t check the news, can’t, can’t can’t—it almost sounds like 2020 all over again. No. No. And No.
The deal with all this cool smart stuff is if the internet connection goes down…things come to a screeching halt and you quickly find yourself wondering if smart is so smart after all. I know this is true for me and almost eight billion of my closest friends. We often think we have it all figured out and that we don’t need God directing our lives or telling us this or that. What we often discover is that without Him…well, we can make a mess pretty quickly.
What we write off as life being crazy and messy is what life becomes without faith and believing. I’m not sure I can imagine what life would be like if we decide we don’t need God anymore, but I am sure I don’t want to find out. Oh, we can get by without religion…no problem there…but God…I don’t think so.
Well, it turned out the internet was down all that day and the next. Rumor was someone hit a pole somewhere and knocked out one of the main lines. I learned that day that all that smart stuff wasn’t worth anything without the thing that made it smart. And in the process of learning that, I was reminded that when we think we are really smart and that we have it all figured out…well, we are not much without the One who made us. Take Him out of the equation and things can grind to a halt pretty quickly. As I waited to for the internet to come back online, I think I heard a whisper from the Whisperer. He seemed to be saying, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” Bro. Dewayne
Grits with Grace 