Backup Plans

Last week, I was speaking at an event and, when I arrived, I was told – apologetically – that there was a problem with the PA system.

I looked round the large hall.

I thought about my inability to reliably project my voice well.

I thought about the fact that, being deaf, I don’t know how loudly or quietly I am talking.

I rely on microphones when speaking in large rooms.

And the microphone was not working.

I turned to the organiser, and began making backup plans:

“I think it will be fine, if you are able to tell me whether I need to raise/lower my voice throughout? And perhaps it would be a good idea to move people even closer to me? I’ll ask people to wave if they can’t hear me. And maybe we should also….”

I was interrupted.

By someone coming to say that the PA system was working.

I had spent time frantically working out how things could work, and they worked just fine without me.

What about us with God?

Maybe we treat Him a bit like that microphone sometimes?

We rely on Him.

But then something persuades us that we can’t rely on Him in a particular situation.

So we make backup plans.

Just in case.

And we worry, and fret, and try to sort things for ourselves.

Wouldn’t it be better if we relied on Him always, instead?

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.

Psalm 46:1 (Berean Standard Bible)

The microphone worked just fine throughout.

There is no God apart from me,

a righteous God and a Saviour;

there is none but me.

“Turn to me and be saved,

all you ends of the earth;

for I am God, and there is no other.”

Isaiah 45: 21c,22 (NIV)