At this point, I can’t help but be tickled when God speaks to me because these days it’s usually by way of my muddy babies or inanimate household objects. This week, it was a vacuum cleaner.
Yes, a vacuum cleaner.
We were at my parents’ fraternity … er, I mean house … over the weekend, where all bets are off when it comes to my children and their feral tendencies. Something about the air at Nauni and Papaw’s house activates something utterly primal in my boys.
It’s a wild phenomenon reminiscent of that old Little Caesar’s Pizza commercial where the guy walks in and yells, “There’s no rules!” while taking off his shirt in the restaurant.
Throw in a Superman cape, too much high-fructose corn syrup, and a couple of impressively scraped knees and you’ve got a recipe for disaster, or greatness. It’s a thin line.
In particular, my boys had discovered Fruity Pebbles, which, naturally, meant the floor would soon discover Fruity Pebbles as well. By the time I started herding everyone towards the door, the fruity flecks of red and yellow, and blue crunched under our shoes. This bought the boys a few more minutes to wreak as much havoc as possible, a challenge they handily accepted, and me an all-expense paid trip to the utility closet.
As I reached for my mom’s vacuum, I remembered she’s still living in the prairie days and her trusty dust buster had to be plugged into the wall, unlike the newfangled cordless spaceships we Millennials have become accustomed to.
I quickly made a few passes over the rug and the top of the coffee table (work smarter, not harder, friends) making sure to hit all of the high points. No pebble left behind. I could hear my tiny pterodactyls screeching across the house as I wrapped the seemingly endless cord around and around … and around the storage hooks.
As I wrapped, I began to feel a download from heaven coming on.
“Cordless isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” For a moment, the sound of a lightbulb clicking on drowned out the hungry pterodactyls in the background.
Such a simple, yet profound concept.
Think about it.
Cordless vacuums are cool in theory, but at the end of the day, they are mostly not as efficient or convenient as the old-school models that preceded them. They may work fine for a few minutes, but ultimately, they need to be constantly charged, whereas you could go all day with a vacuum plugged into the wall.
Isn’t it the same for us as believers? When we try and go cordless, when we aren’t in the Word, when we’re putting off our prayer life, when we isolate ourselves instead of fellowship, we may run fine for a little while, but it’s inevitable that we quickly lose our charge.
A cordless Christian is only as good as their next trip to the charging station.
But when we are plugged into the Source, we are much more spiritually equipped, efficient, and refreshed in our daily operations. That isn’t to say we’ll never blow a fuse or need a little maintenance, but how sweet it is to be tethered to Jesus, the One true spring of our strength and help.
Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).
The Lord is my Strength and my [impenetrable] Shield; my heart trusts in, relies on, and confidently leans on Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise Him (Psalm 28:7).
