On the way home from church recently, I heard an interesting commercial on the radio. A woman was talking to a man about all the new features of her new smart phone. The man said he loved his “old” flip phone saying it was cool because it opened like a switch-blade knife. The woman said that she could watch live TV on her smart phone. The man replied, “I can watch live TV, too … on my TV.”

As I drove, I started thinking about all the data being broadcast over radio frequencies, cell towers and Wi-Fi networks. We are surrounded by all this invisible data around us all the time. If you have the right mobile device, you can receive and interpret this data to talk on the phone, read emails, receive text messages, access websites, download videos, play music, and apparently, watch live TV now.

Then I thought about how this was a perfect metaphor for God’s love.  We are surrounded by God’s love all the time, but we don’t always connect to the signal to receive it.

Often our own pain or the busyness of life creates a lot of static that distracts us from remembering and connecting with God’s love. We run around getting kids ready for school, stressing about deadlines for work, obsessing how someone has wronged us, struggling to care for a sick or elderly relative. And later, once things settle down or when we come back to church on Sunday, we remember and connect with God’s love.

What we miss is the opportunity for God to influence our lives during the pain or busyness, to remember that we can turn over the stress, the worry, the struggle, the pain to him. That we can show others how his love has changed us by how we reflect that love to others in our words and actions.

We all walk around with the right technology to receive God’s love. We just need to keep our hearts tuned to his station. God is calling us. Can you hear Him now?

During the Epiphany season we have heard God proclaim, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Mark 9:7). God calls us to listen to him and go boldly forward, empowered by God’s commandment: “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9).