Are You Tuned In?

Crab ears!

September 11
While traveling home Sunday from an adventure with some of the grandchildren, I was trying to tune into Christian radio along my route.  One click of the "seek" button and I heard a minister say, "Church should be like a mother giving birth. Church should be birthing believers and training them up to send them out into the world."  Now there's an analogy to which I can relate.

In my channel surfacing, I found myself getting distracted as I was following detour signs, talking on the phone and probably just day dreaming.  I would zone back in and realize I was on a country station, a rap station, or talk show.  Tuning in takes a skilled ear. The skill level is heightened when it comes to listening to God.  How easily we drift away from Him.

The Message translation often makes me smile. This is one of those times as I looked for verses related to "tuning in".

Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.  Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.  Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health.  God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.  Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.  Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!  Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home.  Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways  Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.  Psalm 51:7-15

Good friend, take to heart what I'm telling you; collect my counsels and guard them with your life.  Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding.  That's right-if you make insight your priority, and won't take no for an answer, searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt, believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours; you'll have come upon the Knowledge of God.  Proverbs 2:1-5

Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all times.  Concentrate!  Learn it by heart!  Those who discover these words live, really live; body and soul, they're bursting with health.  Proverbs 4:20-22