Ramblings from Retirement – Reconnect!

Ramblings from Retirement – Reconnect!
By Lee Hemen, Retired Pastor
March 18, 2021

There was a popular folk song out when I was in High School by Joni Mitchell called The Big Yellow Taxi. It was supposed to be a statement concerning how the world was paving over everything and destroying it with insecticides. It was kind of a silly song but one line states “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” This is true whether it concerns green spaces or relationships but it can be true of things we begin to depend on in life without ever thinking about them.

Here’s something for you to try for a week: Go without your Wi-Fi or cell phone. Few could make it a day let alone a week, but what if these things were taken away from you for good? What would you do and how would you cope? We lost our Wi-Fi for about 20 hours the other day and I realized just how much we as a family had come to rely on something we often took for granted.

We can do the same thing in our relationship with the Lord. We can become so complacent in our neglect we do not even realize just how far we have strayed from His presence. Or we can become so ignorant of how He has been active in our lives all along that we simply no longer see His presence and power. Sometimes sin can dirty our spiritual sight and we become blind and deaf to the words and work of the Lord.

In Psalm 38 King David felt like everyone and everything was forsaking him; perhaps it was because he was in sin? He seems to imply this when he related, “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin (v. 18).” David related that he was “like a deaf man, who cannot hear, like a mute, who cannot open his mouth; I have become like a man who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply (Vv. 13-14).” Whatever it was David felt utterly alone yet in the midst of his isolation he knew he could depend upon God. David would write, “O LORD, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior. (Psalms 38:21-22 NIV)”

David knew what he needed to do in order to fix his spiritual disconnection from the Lord. He knew that in doing so he would also fix the other things in his life that were troubling him. And here is the secret for us to have the in tune and connected lives we are supposed to have. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of what we have in Him to renew our connection? Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone? Perhaps today you need to be reminded of what you became complacent about?

The wonderful truth is that He is always there willing and waiting for us to reconnect to Him.
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This article is copyrighted © 2021 by Lee Hemen and is the sole property of Lee Hemen, and may not be used unless you quote the entire article and have my permission.

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