I experienced a communication disaster on Wednesday two weeks ago when our telephone lines went down. On Friday evening Telkom texted me that the problem had been resolved. The lines however, remained dead for almost two weeks. Whether I shouted or whispered, no communication could go through.
This reminded me of a time when I was still living with my parents at a younger age. One of our uncles visited us and when we sat down for lunch, my dad asked him to say grace. He did that but spoke very softly. Afterwards my dad thanked him but commented that he could not hear a word he said. My uncle replied, “But I wasn’t talking to you.”
It is interesting how people talk to God. I also remember times on our farm when I saw my dad outside standing motionless with his hat in his hand, staring up into the blue skies. I instinctively knew that he was communicating with God with his eyes open, not saying an audible word.
One day Jesus told me to believe with my eyes wide open. As I mentioned in a previous letter, I did not understand it at first. Later I discovered that when I pray with my eyes wide open, a sense of reality that Jesus is physically present, kicks in.
One reason for closing our eyes when we pray is to cut out all distractions around us, which is fine, but then we would be using our imagination to see Him present in our minds. Jesus wants us to communicate with Him without us using our imagination simply because He really is present with us. Imagination is not faith. If imagination was equal to faith, fairytales would be true.
One day I realised that Jesus had become very quiet in my life. Immediately I realised it was working the other way round. Because I had been neglecting Him, I had in fact become very quiet in His life. When we become too busy, we start to listen less to what He is saying and spend less time with Him. Then we have the audacity to put all the blame on Him for not communicating with us.
Later on that same day I went to town with a long to-do list. I drove from one stop to the next to cover the items jotted down. Every now and then I remembered something I had to do that was not on the list and I “incidentally” discovered that every new to-do item was on route to my next destination. This happened a couple of times when I suddenly realised it was the Lord leading me in His special way, reminding me what I still need to do which was not written down on my list.
“Thank You, Jesus! You are still talking to me!” – “Yes, Ken, but don’t ignore Me. Talk to Me too!”
This is what it means to me to believe with my “eyes wide open”. Whether I close my eyes during prayer, or whether I pray with my eyes wide open, I do not stop communicating with God when I say amen, because He remains present with me anyway.
Communicating with Jesus is not picking up a phone to dial or sending e-mail or an SMS to someone far away. The lines are always connected. Communicating with Jesus is speaking to Him, sometimes seriously, sometimes respectfully casual, sometimes audibly and sometimes softly, but most importantly, continuously.