SIMM Cards
After worshiping with other believers Sunday morning, I stopped by my local wireless carrier store because my mobile phone wasn’t working.You see, for a day or two my phone wasn’t able to place or receive calls, log onto the Internet, or use any apps that were installed. I mentally prepared myself for the news that my less-than-one-year-old mobile phone was toast and would have to be replaced. When I entered the store, I was greeted by a service rep, Dom, who listened to my description of the problem. He then suggested a new SIMM card might take care of the problem. He pulled out the existing card and told me it wasn’t the same thing as a memory card; instead, the SIMM card enabled the mobile phone to communicate with the wireless carrier. Soon he came back with a new card and installed it on my phone. Viola! The phone came to life and showed a fully restored connection. I left the store with a fully functioning phone and was able to re-connect with my wife, family, and friends.The best part of the experience was that it was free.Sometimes in our spiritual walk with God, our “receptors” can malfunction. We can easily slip into the flawed, fatalistic thinking of our culture and our spiritual ears, heart, and mind get clogged and calloused to God’s voice and Word. We get frustrated and angry that we can’t hear from God, feel disconnected from His presence and other people, and blame Him for our situation.Like the wireless service I couldn’t connect to, the reality is that God is always there for us. We are the ones who need a restored, spiritual “SIMM card.” We can’t simply rely on our memories, but need the everyday presence of God to equip and empower us to persevere through each day we have been given.Just as I had to go to the expert to get my phone fixed, we need to go to the One—Jesus Christ—and ask Him to give us His mind and renew our misguided thinking. He desires to give us his mind in all matters of life, through the Holy Spirit and The Living Word of God. The Apostle Paul had this in mind when he wrote:
“ The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us…The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments for “Who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. “1 Corinthians 2: 10-16
Did you catch that? God wants to give us His mind, and He accomplishes this through the power of the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit can identify and renew the broken areas of our lives and thinking and enable us to hear from God and walk closely with Him. God alone can remove the blockages in our relationship with Him, but He requires that we yield those areas to Him. It is both an active decision on our part and a renewing action on God’s part, as the Bible states:
“ Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” Romans 12:2
The renewing of our minds is an ongoing process that will draw us to lean into God through prayer, immersion in His Word, fellowship with spiritually healthy believers, and more as God leads. God promises that He will always be with us. He asks us to continually turn to Him to clear the obstacles in and around us that keep us from hearing Him clearly.True worshipers of the One True God seek His mind in all areas of life.God bless you!Chris Atkins