Whispers

Grrrr! Almost a week has gone by, and I still haven’t been able to post the entry I had in mind for last week. What was once just a minor delay has begun to take on growing proportions, and the whispers are threatening to take over.

Last Sunday, Pastor Bob gave a wonderful message. This is not really all that remarkable. Pastor Bob and Pastor Ron are great preachers and usually give wonderful messages; I must admit, though, some of their messages fall into the realm of “really awesome” sometimes. Anyway, Pastor Bob had been given a unique clock, and I was impressed by how he described it and wove it into his message. I took a picture of Bob with the clock, and asked if he could send me his sermon notes so I could quote him correctly in a blog post. As he had just completed the last service of the day, he smiled and graciously handed me his sermon notes. Well, as I helped Pastor Bob lock up, we chatted. We continued to chat across the campus, up to his office, and out to the parking lot, and… somewhere along the line, I put down the notes and lost them. Well, not lost in the technical sense, just misplaced while I was doing something else. I hope I didn't shove them into the offering bag. The counters might think Pastor Bob was sending them a message. LOL!

I was fairly certain that Pastor Bob must have an electronic copy. How else would he have printed it? So I dashed off an email asking if I could presume upon him to attach it to a reply and send it to me.

I didn’t get a reply, but I did start hearing whispers: “Even if he doesn’t have an electronic copy, couldn’t he at least reply back saying so? How hard is it to attach a file? It’s can’t take more than 2 minutes of his day! It’s not like I’m hard to contact… I write a blog for the church. My phone number has been the same for over 30 years!”

But, hey; I know how email can get lost in the shuffle. I know how one thing leads to another, and how the best laid plans often get sidetracked. So I called the church… several times. I kept missing Pastor Bob (he’s a busy guy), but got assurances that he’d call me back.

I didn’t get any return calls, but I did get more whispers: “Is everything else in the world so much more important that I can’t get a call back? Am I that unimportant? Do I only matter when they need me to something?”

I tried to shake off the whispers: “Bob loves me. He cares about me. It’s probably just a silly misunderstanding. I’ll see him Sunday and find out how we managed to get so disconnected. We’ll probably have a big laugh about all this.”

Then a new set of whispers started.

I checked my voicemail Wednesday night to hear a message from my friend Jim. The church was starting a new study series, and though I had signed up, I had heard nothing about being part of any group. The message was time-stamped from Monday, but somehow my message server did not deliver it until Wednesday! Later, I found out that the message server had experienced a crash; no messages were lost, just delayed in their delivery. As I listened to the message I heard how the group had missed me last Wednesday evening, but were looking forward to me being there this Wednesday. I was hearing the message too late to do anything. I had now missed two weeks! I didn’t even know where they were meeting.

The whispers were definitely increasing in volume and intensity: “How is it that NOBODY could call and talk to me personally?!? My doctor, my dentist, and the Red Cross can all call me to remind me of appointments… can’t my church call and tell me I’m part of a new small group? Can’t the group leader touch base with me? Shouldn’t I at least be informed of when and where they are meeting?”

Again, I took a step back and realized that somebody had tried to reach me, and a series of breakdowns had kept me from hearing the information. Sometimes we depend on technology so much we forget that we might not always be connecting all the way to our intended target. Then I had another revelation… my ISP (Internet Service Provider) had changed the way it allows outside domains to communicate with it. Long story short: my email had not been connecting properly between my domain and my ISP (SMTP and POP3 changes for all you techies). Turns out, I may have lost more than a few email messages.

When Jesus was in the desert, he was tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:13). Jesus experienced the very same temptations we experience. He heard the same whispers, but he recognized them for what they were: lies. We go through our own spiritual deserts… sometimes it seems on a daily basis. For that reason we pray:

“Lead us not into temptation.”

And yet, the whispers persist. Satan is persistent! For that reason we pray:

“Deliver us from evil.”

This is why it is so important to REALLY invite Jesus into your heart and your life. We are broken people. We are sinful by our very nature. We try to do our best, but our churches are imperfect, our pastors are imperfect, we are imperfect, and most of all… I am imperfect. When we truly open our hearts to God, we begin to walk with Jesus, and we have the power to say:

“Get thee behind me, Satan! I’m not listening to your evil whispers any more!”

Your brother in Christ,

Dave