Disconnected and Connected:
I upgraded my swim watch this last month, it syncs information with my phone and sends my watch alert messages. Whenever I get too far away from my phone, my watch buzzes a message: Disconnected. Whenever I get closer to my phone is also alerts me with a buzz and a message: Connected. For some odd reason when I stand in the kitchen making dinner or lunch there is a spot where my watch buzzes back and forth, connected then seconds later disconnected. A constant battle buzzing on my wrist notifying me that a bit over to the left or over to the right causes me to be either connected or disconnected.
I ponder what it would be like if my watch could buzz when it knew I was walking without God leading me. That it would buzz when I would become disconnected from God’s Word. Sometimes I feel, like when I stand in the kitchen, one second I am connected and the next I am disconnected, in a constant spiritual battle, stuck between faith failures and successes. Would my spiritual watch read more “Disconnected” than “Connected”?
King Saul’s heart became disconnected from God, he started following his own choices, his own rules, seeking his own authority. Saul becomes consumed by distrust, believing everyone is against him, that David is planning a rebellion. His imagination starts to dwell on himself and what he can do to control his circumstances and finds himself spiraling out of control. A self-feeding madness overwhelms Saul’s heart and soul, his spiritual watch would have buzzed: DISCONNECTED!!!! Saul convinced himself he was in control, and what a tempting pitfall since he was King of Israel, chosen by God himself. Saul forgot that God is and always will be the one in control, the one who gives and the one who takes. God rejects King Saul as king for his people and anoints David to be King whose heart is connected to God.
Although David became disconnected with his life, he became a fugitive, fleeing from Saul and his armies, David trusted and stayed connected to the one thing needful: God. David trusted God’s promise and His plan for him, even when things seemed utterly dire and dark. We know David will not be a perfect king, David too will become disconnected with God, but David will reconnect his heart in repentance.
Life for Paul in the Acts reading was just as difficult. Paul was stoned to death and dragged outside of the city to rot —or so the people of the city thought. When the disciples surrounded the crumpled mangled body of Paul, Paul rose up and walked right back into the city, and left the next day continuing to spread the message of Jesus. The people who stoned Paul were offered a connection to God, Jesus. They wanted nothing of it, it was vile to them, they despised it, and wanted it to be destroyed. So they killed the man of God. They thought they severed the connection. Our Lord God cannot be severed from His creation of all people and nations. He continues to make Himself known to all. He seeks a connection with every single person.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,[c] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;[d]
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’[e]
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:24-31
It might be near impossible to compare ourselves to David and Paul’s faith, two of the most famous and greatest men of faith in the Bible. We, like King Saul, can get caught up in the ‘here and now’, the fame, the glory, the riches, the control, and the comforts this world has to offer. But both David and Paul did too, however the difference when compared to Saul, is they repented. The word “repent” in Hebrew is more complex than how it translates in English. It doesn’t just mean, to be “sorry”. But it means to “turn around” and make a dwelling. When we repent of our sins, we turn away from those sins, and dwell in Him and His Word. David and Paul turned away from their sinful choices in their life and trusted in God’s planned path for each of them, whether it be a death of a child or one’s own stoning. The battle for our soul may be constantly surrounding us, the constant buzz of being connected and disconnected may distract us from what we are called to do. He is never far from us, in him we live, and our assurance is when Jesus rose from the dead. God opens our heart to His Word, our spiritual watch, no matter how bad our day is going, reads: Connected through Christ!!!
מגן השביל 