Observation Point – Isolated But Still In Contact.

Another Sunday and another spiritual moment inspired from our stay at Philip Island. (Don’t worry this will be the last spiritual one from there!) On the same foggy morning I told you about last Sunday, I went for a walk along the Cowes Beach towards Observation Point. As said then, it was a reasonably good easy approximately 3 kms walk, along the sandy beach at Low tide, even though visibility was poor. As the sand was hard and firm, I was making good and easy progress on my way to this place called Observation Point, which was only accessible on foot along the beach. As already stated, it was very foggy to start with but visibility improved as I went along.

Because of the fog and the fact that it was winter, I basically had the beach to myself! Or so I thought. Initially I thought I was isolated from the whole world but no, the world was still around me and I couldn’t escape from it.

One of the Psalms in the Bible says that there is no-where that one can go that he can avoid God and be beyond His reach. A bit like Mobile phones I guess? As I was walking along the apparently deserted beach that morning in the mist, about 2kms from Cowes, the fog lifted a little and I saw two men ahead of me, walking back from the water’s edge at low tide in a direction that eventually cut directly across mine.

As I got closer I could hear talking. As I got even closer I realized that one, whilst he was walking next to the other person on the beach, was talking to another on his Mobile Phone. I could also gather from the way he was speaking that the person on the other end was having trouble believing that the one he was speaking to was “on the Island now”.

It seems these days that if we have our Mobiles with us, we can be reached anywhere and at anytime. Even when we don’t want to be reached, unless we turn our phones off.

Sometimes I think humankind must have a built in Mobile phone in our Heads where God can reach us anytime and any place, if our receivers are on.

The trouble being, we often have our “God-receivers’ either switched off or leave the calls unanswered because we are busy doing other things to bother with God?

Maybe even worse, it could be like the chap on the beach’s friend on the other end, and we struggle to really believe where the call is coming from and ignore God’s call to us as unbelievable.

What say you? Is your God-receiver, switched off, on but unanswered, just waiting for you to make the right connections? Or is it on but you are having trouble believing the call is what God says it is? Again what say you? Is your direct line to God open or have you switched it off? Over to you now as the answer is figuratively and metaphorically in your hands now.

You can either switch on and answer God's call with your full attention, or you can continue to wander in the fog and mist and often with wet shoes from the ever-changing tides of life: Walter