Due to touching a button on my TV remote, I recently lost connection on my TV. No matter what I pressed, I kept seeing a white screen, with words in black that read:‘No Signal- find source.’ At one point, everything went completely grainy.
It happened shortly before midnight, while I was on the sofa in the living room, with the remote nearby. In getting up to close the window, Imoved a leg that inadvertently touched a buttonon the remote, while I was watching a movie.
I started to panic as I’d never seen that message before. I wasn’t sure what I had pushed. And no matter what Ipressed afterward, there was no change.I took a breath and told myself to relax. I’m used to solving problems. No big deal, I thought, I can figure it out.
My read of the manual for the TV didn’t help, either. None of what I was seeing was covered in the ‘Troubleshooting’ section in that guide. I resolved to give up. I pictured the hassle of having to call a repair technician the next day. And what if that person couldn’t fix it? I became frantic. I had visions of a TV-less existence.
But my mother said, in her calm way: ‘Don’t stress. You’ll figure it out, Sharma.’ With those words, and a yawn, she got up from her recliner and went to bed.
I knew the problem had to do with the source. The TV somehow was connected to the wrong one. I clicked and clicked. And clicked some moreuntil…success! I selected the right source. The right connection was restored. I watched the rest of the movie with ease.
I couldn’t help but think about the bigger picture: how we go through our lives disconnected from our one true source: God.
Words from Paul
The Bible verses that came to mind during that incident were those from the passage in the Book of Acts where the Apostle Paul addressed the people of Athens. These people had an inscription on an altar that read: ‘to an unknown God.’
The people of Athens were so obsessed with worshipping idols and gods that they were worshipping ones they couldn’t even give a name to!In Acts Chapter 17, Paul explained that the God who made the world does not live in temples built by human hands.
And this God is not served by human hands since he doesn’t need anything. Instead, he gives everyone life and breath. From one man (Adam) he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.
God made the world and we are not here by chance. You were born in this time and in the country you are for a reason.
Not by chance
Many of us think that we are here completely by chance. We think of our existence as accident or coincidence. We think we are here because of choices our parents made or through some random series of events.
As God said to the prophet Jeremiah: “Before you were born I knew you, I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah Chapter 1 verse 5). Read Psalm 139 to get an understanding about how intimately God knows you.
Why are we here?
In verses 27 to 31 of Acts Chapter 17, Paul said:
“God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed [Jesus]. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
In short, Paul is saying we are here to connect with our Source. God wants us to know Him. We are ultimately ineffective if we are unconnected from Him. Our lives are blank. Empty. Even if we think we have everything we need.
In Him, is true eternal life. Without him, we will not experience our full potential and fulfil our purpose on earth.
Give up self-reliance and trying to figure it out on your own. Don’t waste time panicking about the problems in your life, either. Help is available.
Again, I encourage you to connect to the Source.
Sharma Taylor is a corporate attorney with a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Law from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She won the 2017 Basil Sellers International Young Writers prize in the Press Service International young writer program, the 2019 Tronson Award (International) and the 2021 Basil Sellers award for International Senior Writers. Every day, she loves experiencing the beautiful surprises that God has stored up for her and longs to keep cultivating a servant-heart.