Too Much White Noise

I remember life before cable TV. Growing up, I lived in the country, out in Mt. Pleasant. Even from there I was a good 10 minutes from town. So there was no way my family was going to get cable. My parents bowled on Fridays nights so we would go to their friends' house while they bowled - and they had cable TV! They had the box with 2 lines of buttons that made a loud clicking noise. Ah, the memories.

Anyway, before all of this high-definition stuff, my parents did have a remote control. It was called Donnie, Bobby and Dwayne! We changed the channels for our parents. On our TV there were 2 knobs - VHF and UHF. You know. You remember, right? On VHF were channels 3 and 9 which had the clearest pictures. On UHF were the new channels 18 and 36. These were always fuzzy with lots of static and white noise. So, it was hard to get a clear picture.

Well, in the past couple of weeks my life has been similar to these UHF channels. Lots of static and white noise. I've had many distractions, both personally and professionally. The white noise drowns out the important things in my life - like my bride, Courtney, and my son, MD. But, most of all it distracts me from God. If I stay distracted from Him for too long I forget my purpose and my direction and I am not the person I should be.

When the white noise gets too loud, I am forced to shut it off which is not always easy to do. I have to turn off the noise - like my phone and computer. I then go to the garage or back patio and read. In Psalm 46:10, God told David to “Be still and know that I am God!” The command to “be still” means “cause yourselves to let go.” When the white noise is too loud, I have to “be still” or “let go” to see the saving power of God in my life. I give up in trusting in what I can do or what is going on around me in order to experience the glory of God’s all-sufficiency.

When I confess the truth about who I really am and entrust all my cares, burdens and distractions to God, I regain my focus, purpose and priorities as well as an unshakable peace and confidence.