It’s been a little more than twelve years since I got my first cell phone – the Motorola Microtac 650 (it was anything but micro.) I remember two things about this phone: first, that it was practically indestructible (it survived full submersion in a bucket of water and still worked well), and secondly that the reception was very finicky. In the 18 months I had that phone, I dropped hundreds of calls, usually while driving on the highway and cruising through the valley. Because all your phone did was make phone calls – I couldn’t check Facebook text message, or even play basic video games on that first phone (nor the next one I used) – you were at the whim of the network. And these analog networks (things like 3G, 4G, and LTE weren’t even part of the conversation yet) had decent coverage in major cities like Edmonton and Calgary… but the rest of Alberta was hit and miss. The key to using your phone was making sure that you were in a place that you had reception – and sometimes that meant being in a certain room in your house, with your phone pointed a certain way to be able to hear and talk to whomever you were trying to call. (The ‘antennagate’ issue with the iPhone 4 a couple years ago hearkened back to those days.)
As I mentioned last week, we have been made to live in relationship with God – it is an intrinsic part of our human nature. In a lot of ways, we are no different than the shape sorter toy you may have had as a kid: mine was a blue & red ball, with the holes for various shaped items spread around its surface. The ball was designed in such a way that each shaped piece matched up to one hole and would fit through that one hole only (much to my frustration, at the time!) God has made us with a God-shaped hole in our hearts: nothing else can properly fill it.
The struggle we often go through, however, is getting good reception. The problem here differs from early cell phones in that it isn’t a deficiency in the network – God is broadcasting everywhere and at all times… it’s more a case where we are having a hard time recognizing God’s existence, presence in our lives, and the ways in which He speaks to us. God has made Himself so readily available that He is broadcasting His presence to us through the world around us, by the Church, and in our hearts. Through all these means – our natural reason, the witness of the Church, and through our own experiences, we can come to know God’s existence. Yet. learning to properly attune ourselves to be able to see and hear God is a great challenge:
“To know the invisible God is a great challenge for the human mind. Many are scared off by it. Another reason why some do not want to know God is that they would then have to change their life. Anyone who says that the question about God is meaningless because it cannot be answered is making things too easy for himself.” -YouCat #5
God can be known – and this knowing is at the heart of why you exist. Make the effort to get better reception so that you can Hear what He has to say, and know His guidance in your life. This means making time and space for God – consistently – going to Church, reading the Bible, in silent prayer, in service of others. These are ways to boost the signal God is trying to speak to your mind and heart.