I’ve ranted in previous columns about the seizure-inducing channel-surfing practices of my husband when he gets his mitts on a T.V. remote control. Opportunities abound for Joe to commandeer a remote because the doggone things seem to multiply like rabbits. Every electronic gizmo comes with its own remote, so as our entertainment center expands, so do opportunities for clicker abuse.
In an effort to promote marital harmony, I will not again expound – at least not today — on the vastly different clicker behaviors typically exhibited by males and females. Nor will I again campaign – at least not today — for the kindler, gentler style practiced by most women.
But I do have a pretty good remote control story, and this one mercifully has nothing to do with my husband…
Following a recent service at church, I was passing through the lobby and spotted a friend standing like a buoy amidst waves of boisterous kids.
I could see that my friend was worn out and ready to head for home. She had that unmistakable, glassy-eyed, “I-NEED-to-be-through-with-this-day” look on her face and was holding her car’s “keyless entry” fob up in the air, pushing it as she mindlessly called her son’s name.
When she realized I was staring at her with a baffled look on my face, she said in complete earnestness, “I can’t believe it – I was trying to get my son to come over here with my car remote.”
“Don’t we wish it were that easy?” I laughed.
Can you imagine what life would be like if we could control everyone around us with a remote control?
Click – my husband would appear by my side and want to know everything about my feelings, my desires, my thoughts, my life, and my dreams.
Click – my friends would insist I use their beach condo, free of charge.
Click – the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Prize Patrol would knock on my door and hand me a cardboard superprize check with my name on it.
Click – I would be appreciated, adored and served by everyone in my little universe.
But wait … would I really feel adored, appreciated and served if nobody had a choice about whether they wanted to adore, appreciate or serve me?
Hmmm…now that I think about it, true adoration and appreciation cannot be coerced, forced service is called slavery, and real love presupposes the freedom NOT to love.
Theologians have been debating “free will” and “predestination” for centuries. I won’t pretend to understand exactly how these two seemingly contradictory concepts can both be true, but I think they are and that God perhaps purposely keeps a detailed explanation of their intermeshing on a shelf too high for us to reach, lest it blow our little finite minds.
This I know: God creates us with a deep need to live in intimate relationship with Him. This I believe: He reaches out in love to show us how to enter into that relationship through His Son, Jesus, and then lets us come…or not come.
The Gospels include stories of both a rich young ruler who chose “stuff” over a relationship with Jesus, and a tax collector who chose a relationship with Jesus over “stuff.”
Seems to me that the invitation was the same, though the responses very different.
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,” Joshua challenged (Joshua 24:15).
Could God have created robots if He’d wanted robots? Certainly. But He wanted children.
And as my friend found out, remote controls just don’t work on kids.