James 4: 8 (NKJV)

 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you

Life is hard! Life is confusing!  Life is frustrating even when you have a relationship with God—a good relationship. We think we’re doing what God wants us to do and…then life goes off the rails or our project fails or our relationship ends and not in a pretty way.

So what do we do then?

I’ll answer that in a minute. First I want to talk about me!

Without going into all the gory details, I’m basically deaf. One ear is completely deaf, the other still have some usable hearing when I wear my hearing aid. Last week my main aid broke. Hopefully it will be fixed this week. But no problem, I’ll use my back up aid…until…

Last night, we were watching a movie and my back-up hearing aid starts fading in and out. First I can hear then I can’t! Over and over. Hear then can’t. Hear then can’t. Talk about frustrating. But at least I had closed captioning on the TV and then my husband loaned me one of his aids—wasn’t perfect but it worked.

This morning, my back up aid seemed fine at first but then fading in and out… in and out… I really wanted to just scream. We were watching the American Idol finale so closed captioning didn’t really help that much. I dealt with it the best I could. Did I mention I wanted to scream?

Then I went upstairs and did some maintenance on it. And it started working again. So my frustration was actually my fault since I failed to keep up with the necessary maintenance.

As I looked at that tiny little hearing aid and thinking about how much I needed it, it made me think about God and how much I need him.. Our experience with God can be the same sometimes.

We know we need him, but we don’t always give him the attention we should to stay connected with him.

And then bam!

 It feels like God is nowhere to be found! We can’t hear Him! So frustrating.  If and when this happens, it’s time to get back to basic maintenance.

Reading God’s Word.

Praying to God.

Praise and worship.

In other words, spending time with God.

Before you know it, you can hear Him again.

James 4: 8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” Sometimes we forget that God is always there waiting for us. God wants an intimate relationship with us but we need to do our part as well.

Just as my hearing aid needs basic maintenance so I can hear, so does our relationship with God if we want to hear from Him. Don’t wait until the connection is broken and you’re so frustrated you want to scream. Keep up on the maintenance and you’ll have the peace and joy God promises.