…for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
Acts 17:11
We live in a world bombarding us with messages day and night. They come through the television screen. They are on billboards as we drive to work. They are in our mailbox, our inbox and on our computer screen. They arrive with a chime when someone texts one to us or if you still have an answering machine, a little light flashes to let you know you have a new voice message.
For many of us, texting has become an easy way to send a quick message to someone without much interruption. Usually my children aren’t allowed to text. They don’t have a phone and I’m a little scared what they might send if they used mine (see below). During our snow week, my son asked if he could text our neighbor to see if her son could come over to play. He’s in 2nd grade now, so I thought he could do it and I was busy trying to finish up making dinner. It was taking him a while to send and he got a funny grin on his face. Here is the message he sent:
Hey man who has the most important part in this message was delivered to you by phone or something like that for me to know about it and I could probably use the following link from the heavens and a half years ago and have been a lot of sweet reunions.
Sounds like a Mad Libs™ game to me! If ever there was a confusing message that needed to be decoded, well that was it. As I read the message, I couldn’t help but laugh. What a confusing bunch of words jumbled together. If my neighbor’s son was old enough to read I would have thought they were still playing spies.
Instead of sending a simple message, my son began choosing the suggested words that popped up on the screen. He took great delight in choosing each one carefully however crazy his message was becoming.
In all the messages sent our way each day, God’s unique and divine message to us remains unchanged. He carefully chose each person to write each word of the Bible as His message of love to us, His creation. And don’t you know He delights each time we open up His Word and read the message He has for us today. The words haven’t changed, the message is the same as it was thousands of years ago, but God still uses His divine Word to speak straight to our hearts. His message is miraculously relevant for the circumstances we are in today in this crazy world that is bombarding us with jumbled words and mixed messages everywhere we look.
I began a text to my neighbor a few mornings ago “Good Morning to you….” When I glanced over it before I sent it I noticed that my phone had chosen “God’s Morning to you….” Unlike my son, I wasn’t deliberately choosing words that didn’t make sense. I have thought about that “mistext” many times since. I kind of like that message!
God’s morning to you reminds me that it’s His morning and I am blessed to enjoy it. It reminds me that this is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. God holds today and He holds me. He goes before me this morning and is with me all day because He loves me with an everlasting love. God’s morning to you reminds me that God has a message for me this morning in His Word, but if I don’t read it I will miss it.
Jesus prayed that we wouldn’t miss His message to us either, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message” (speaking of His disciples). I also pray that you would believe in Christ through their message written in the Word of God, because the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.