Lately my phone battery has been dying at moments when I needed it for work or crucial discussions. It’s not that it’s faulty per se, no, rather it’s because I didn’t charge it when I ought to.
I used to charge it overnight so that it would last for much of the following day. When, however, I didn’t get it charged overnight it dies during the day. There were many moments during the day when it could have been charged, and should have been charged, but many times it felt like those were the moments when I should be using the phone.
One time I was using its WiFi hotspot to do some online work on my laptop even though the phone battery was low. Not only did my phone die that evening, but it did not come back on for hours even after it was plugged in to charge. That was the moment I realised that I had gone too far.

Yeah, I’m probably the worst phone owner out there. I’m trying to improve though, and I will.
But the experience taught me something. My phone taught me a couple things about my life.

I need a consistent power supply

Just as my phone needs to be charged for it to work well, my life needs a consistent supply of God’s Word if I’m going to live effectively. Every day, with every word we speak, every thought we think, every move we make and every breath we breathe we are expending life. There’s a saying that the source of a thing is what sustains it. We become children of God by believing His Word in the Gospel, and it is His Word that sustains us.
Or like Peter put it

For through the living and eternal word of God you have been born again as the children of a Parent who is immortal, not mortal.

(1 Peter 1:23)

God’s Word is eternal and abides forever. If I want to live effectively, I need a supply of God’s Word to frame my mindset. If God wants to speak to me, it would primarily be through what is written in the Bible.

Remember, the tree in Psalm 1 is planted by the rivers of water. That’s a constant consistent supply. We all need that. Like hugging a transformer and staying fully charged. Yes there’s a death, but there’s life ’cause God’s Word gives life😉

We afford ourselves of this opportunity when we connect regularly with our local churches to be taught God’s Word, when we listen to it being taught elsewhere, when we discuss and study it with one another and when we study the Bible for ourselves. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand. All of these are very important for our growth spiritually.

If it is not charged well, it would die

If I am giving out more than the quota of God’s Word that I am taking in, I will burn out.

As children of God, the inclination of our God-renewed spirits is to reach out to others. We may reach out to people with God’s love and message through our words, our acts of service, our social media, but primarily, our lives. Many times God provides opportunities for this. But if I have not been feeding on His Word regularly, I may be a blessing to others but I would not be in the best frame that God wants me to be. In explaining His Word I may have faulty situational explanations opposed to His Word, defined by my emotions and not His context. In some cases, I might even not know or be aware of what He would have me do. In some other cases, I might even refuse to do what He would want me to do because I don’t feel like it.
Notice the common denominator in these examples: my feelings. When God’s Word is not my priority, I am going to be live based on how I feel. Feelings change, people. But God’s Word endures.

God wants me to be fruitful. Psalm 1:3 paints a very interesting picture. Here, check it out:

…they find joy in obeying the Law of the LORD, and they study it day and night.
They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.

Psalm 1:2,3

The kind of person that is spiritually healthy and fruitful at all times is one who finds joy in obeying God’s law and studies it day and night. And do you know the fruit that God wants to produce in our lives?

But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.

Galatians 5:22, 23

I want to be loving, joyful, peaceful and at peace, patient, kind, good, faithful (trustworthy) and full of faith, humble and self-controlled, and I want to be like that all the time.

Love, for example, is a primary quality of God because He is love (1 John 4:8). And the Bible lets us know that love endures, it is kind even when it suffers long (1 Corinthians 13:4). Living just by feelings wouldn’t cut it. If I want my life to remain loving through all seasons, if I want to be fruitful in God’s measure no matter what happens, I need a consistent supply of God’s Word.

I’m not made to work 24/7

I’ve covered much of this particular lesson in my other article on REST so you can check that out too (thank you!). But I’ll summarize that here too.

Our phones were not made to work 24/7. They need moments to recharge so that when they are charged we can use them for all the tasks and fun stuff we desire.

We also weren’t made to work 24/7/365. God gave the Israelites a pattern of 6-days of work in a week with one day set aside to cease from work. While it’s not a law for non-Jews like me, the essence of it is very essential for every one of us.

Rest gives our bodies and minds an opportunity to recharge. To let go of the stress and work that have weighed it down so that we can later tackle it with revived energy, creativity, excitement and better coordination.

That meme or WhatsApp discussion won’t run away if you let your phone charge. The world won’t end if you take a day or a couple of hours to rest before heading back into the work you’ve been doing for hours. That rhythm of work and rest is essential to us all. When God rested on the seventh day, I’ll bet it’s not because He was tired.

I wrote a whole article about this subject that I really love, and I think you would too. Please check it out here when you have the time.

It is my responsibility

My phone is my possession and as such its well-being is in my charge. If its screen is broken, it’s my fault. If it is ruined beyond repair, I am responsible. The state of my phone and my other possessions says a lot about my attention to responsibility. If my phone battery is dying consistently when it could have been charged, then it means I have been lax concerning my responsibilities.

This makes me consider how I’ve been treating the people and systems placed in my charge. Do I only use them or am I deliberate about adding to them? Am I more concerned with what I can get rather than what I can give?

These opened up a lot I needed to work on, and much of that work is inside where no one else can see, except the Audience of One.
This leads in to something very important.

My life belongs to God

The phone may have been purchased by me, but does it make it mine? Who provided the money?

James wrote it this way:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

James 1:17

My life and every good thing in it is a gift from God. In taking care of it well, I am honouring Him. But when I do it deliberately for Him, life becomes a life of worship. The best way I can honour Him is to give it to Him. Like Paul put it,

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Romans 12:1

He also wrote it this way in his letter to the Corinthian church,

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

1 Corinthians 6:20

In honouring Him with my life, I am serving Him rightly. In taking care of my phone, for example, I am honouring it as a gift from Him. This gives me a sense of higher responsibility.

Many times we forget that God is actually concerned even with how we treat our secular things. Jesus told a couple of stories to illustrate just how important this is.

Remember the one about the talents? Jesus told a story in Matthew 25 about a man that was travelling but he gave a couple of talents to his workers. And, no, he didn’t magically give them the ability to sing or play the violin. A talent in those days was a unit of money some have estimated to about $5000. The servants were rewarded for using and gaining profit on the money he gave them. But the one servant that kept the one talent he was given was said to despise his master, and was punished for it.

Jesus wants us to be responsible with the things He has given to us. Our friendships, our family, our secular work and ministry work are all important to Him. We honour Him when we see it all as an offering to Him, choosing to honour Him in them all.

And it all starts from honouring Him with our lives.

Let me finish…

So if I were to sum up all I’m trying to say:

• Keep your phone charged!
• Have a consistent supply of God’s Word.
• God’s Word makes us fruitful and effective
• Your life is a gift, a responsibility bestowed on you by God. Make it an offering to Him.

Yeah, I think that about covers it. This particular article has a lot more to do with actions so I’d better get to work.

Thanks for reading!

What have you learnt or are learning? In what ways can we honour God in our lives? Please share below. Thank you!