I had been cautiously cleaning out some of the "stuff" that had been stored in our garage. I say "cautiously"because there are those areas of a home that are often labeled "his" or "hers." I was definitely in "his" territory, so I wanted some sense that what I chose to discard would not be anxiously hunted for in the near future. Satisfied that I had done what I could, I pushed on the button that prompts the garage door to open or close. The huge door clumsily started on its downward path and halted in midair. That was not what I needed. (It’s that sense of getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar.) My technological intelligence tells me that if at first I don’t succeed, try, try again. And I did. The door was now looking monstrous and I only succeeded in giving it a case of the hiccups as it bounced up and down. Common sense began to kick in and I thought, "Maaaaybe, there’s something obstructing the sensor!" Feeling a bit brilliant, I moved a few things around, and with a hint of confidence pushed the down button again. The awkward bouncing of this giant monstrosity was now beginning to threaten the security of my marriage. Not only had I given in to my cleaning whim, but I had destroyed the garage door in the doing. With a sense of desperation, I decided to take a crash course in the design of sensors. I looked for the sensor itself, something I usually take for granted, and it was then I saw this "thing" just dangling. True brilliance finally erupted, and I was actually able to reattach the sensor to give it the proper perspective.

 

Sometimes our spiritual sensors are as askew as the one in our garage. Their deficiency comes though, not in their faulty design, but in the fact that we can fail to use them. Wisdom for daily living is not a thing we have to simply hope for. God promises it to us. So what do we do? We listen to the voices of our culture or the voices that have taken up residence in our thinking. We pursue what we are convinced will bring us satisfaction or we deplete our emotional and physical resources reaching for what we cannot have. We run roughshod over others, forgetting the needs that they might have. We wind up as dazed Christians, wandering around in our own self-imposed misery. God is our source of wisdom, but He doesn’t just "dump" it on us. Neither does He write His answers in the sky or forcefully coerce us. Attachment and attentiveness bring His answers as we stay connected to Him. Willingness to not only hear from God, but also to respond to Him in appropriate ways fosters our ability to discover what He has for us. And godly counsel from other believers in a context of honesty and vulnerability helps to assure us that the voice we hear is truly God’s. Is your dangling spiritual sensor threatening your security?