How many battery chargers do you have? I personally have ten.
Theres one to charge the rechargeable batteries for my camera; one to charge my laptop; one to charge my big rechargeable torch; two to charge car batteries; one to charge my video camera; and three to charge my cellphone. Yes three. One that plugs into the mains at home; one that plugs into the cigarette lighter in the car; and one that plugs into my laptop. In fact, I have a whole drawer full of them at home. When you open my charger drawer its a tangle of wires and little boxes of various shapes and sizes. Sometimes I pull out one and it takes me a while to remember precisely what it is for. On top of that I am always nervous that I might use the wrong charger on the wrong equipment and blow up or burn out my electronic assets.
The truth is that most of us would not be able to live without our cell phone chargers. Not true? Oh, sure, we would manage for a day or two while the battery still had charge, but then it would probably be close to a national disaster. Ever go somewhere, like on holiday, and forget to take your charger with you? One time I went away for the day on business and left my main cellphone charger and car charger at home. Of course I only realised this once I saw the phones battery was almost dead and of course this would happen when I really needed to make some important calls. The skies brightened for a moment when I found my cellphone-to-laptop charger, but clouded over again when I discovered my laptop was almost dead and I didnt have my laptop charger with me either. Thankfully, I was able to intra-cablely drain the last bit of electrical life from my laptop and into my phone just enabling me to make those few important phone calls, but killing my laptop in the process.
Spiritual chargers
So what am I really talking about here? All this got me thinking that we as humans also need to have our batteries charged on a regular basis or we too will die. Of course there is the obvious one of charging or fuelling our bodies daily with food and water. However, the batteries I am talking about are the spiritual ones that drive our minds and hearts. Interestingly our brains and hearts do work with electricity. Yet we as Christians often forget in our busy lives that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word of God (Matthew 4:4). While frantically searching for our cellphone charger before it dies we casually forget our spiritual chargers and do not realise we may be losing our spiritual connection. If only we would be so concerned about charging our spiritual lives as we are about charging all our other gadgets.
Our spiritual chargers are of course prayer and Bible study, amongst others. We might tend to forget our Bible-charger when we go away, but our prayer-charger is built-in and is always with us. Wouldnt that be a good idea if all our gadgets and cellphones had built-in, cant-forget-at-home chargers? More than relying on and getting obsessed with all those physical battery chargers we need to rely on and get obsessed about our spiritual chargers.
My wife has an old cellphone, but the battery life on it is good. It can last a few days before it needs recharging. On the other hand, I have a smartphone. It is really a great tool and toy. It is full of stuff and can do amazing things (even make phone calls). Yet the one downside to a smartphone is that because it can do so much and is so busy, the battery life is short. We are smartphones – the smartest of them all. And in the same way also need to recharge our spiritual batteries every single day.
Just before Jesus returned to heaven he gave us the command often referred to as the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). Part of what he said to his disciples is often over-looked by us. He first says that all power in heaven and earth has been given to him. We Christians need to tap into this ultimate power source. Not for our own selfish desires, but to do what God has called us to do and become what we ought to become. No common old cellphone charger or any other charger for that matter is good enough to do the job. We need to use the super spiritual chargers of Gods written word (the Bible) and prayer.
Unfortunately I have to sign off now because my laptop needs to be charged.
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