NEW! Cell Phone!

Have you ever heard the saying, “The more I get ahead the further behind I become?” I probably have it wrong and someone out there can let me know what the words really are. But you get the idea. It really came home to me this weekend. Now, I don’t consider myself a slouch when it comes to electronics. I realize that things are getting more complicated because they do more things. Setting up the computer wasn’t a problem. Plug in a few cables and follow the instructions on the screen. Well, maybe I didn’t realize the computer takes half an hour to format to each individual. But I made it work and all is fine now. I guess, over the years and doing simple computers at first helped.
Then came the cell phone. What a great invention. I no longer have to carry a quarter and look for a pay phone. The one I have had for a while now is simple and right to the point. It rings, and I push the yes button. I push the numbers in the right order and I hear the person I am calling on the other end. They tell me is can do other stuff but that is fine. Incoming and outgoing calls are all I need.
Then came the MP3 player. Now I remember the first transistor radio. Small compact and could just make it into your shirt pocket if you pulled hard enough and in the right directions. Lasted about two months and you took the 9volt battery out for something else. The MP3 player replaces Walkman’s and portable CD players. My daughter gave it to me over a year ago and I filled it up with about 75 big band songs and took it on holidays. Even came with a ten-page instruction manual. Now where are the cord and manual?
We went through the job it entailed to set up the stereo in another column so I will forgo that one. But this weekend my daughter and I were talking. She had suggested I get a new phone to replace my present phone. Sure, why not, after all, she has a new one and I can have her old one. It is newer then my present one.
So here I am, on a Saturday afternoon reading the manual. All one hundred pages of it. This is the English one as the one hundred page French one wouldn’t do me any good. One hundred pages of instruction on how to get the best out of a phone that you only need to perform outgoing calls and take incoming ones. I read through far enough to know how to turn it on, dial a number connect when it rings and turn it off. Oh, sorry I did learn how to take pictures with it. I guess I won’t need my digital camera anymore. In fact I won’t need to read the rest of the camera’s manual either. Did I mention it can be programed to have separate rings for each person who calls you, takes pictures and connects to my email? Not likely but it can. Like I said, “The more I get ahead the further behind I become.”
Then it hit me. I have another manual sitting here on my desk and it has fifteen hundred pages. I can read ten pages of the phone manual to know how it works but how many pages of scripture will I need to read to know God? How much will we have to read and absorb until we get it? I will have to go back and read the MP3 manual again to find out how it works again. So we do the same with the bible. That is the wonderful thing about God’s manual, we can open it time and time again and learn more about God and ourselves. It is a manual about relationships. This past Sunday I shared with the congregation that the Bible is not a book of rules and regulations but a book about hope and promises. A book about relationships and primarily our relationship to God. We all think we know enough about the bible and God, but do we?
Now, what is this on page 1254 about faith the size of a mustard seed?
Rob