The Miracle of the Cell Phone

I think it was 1994 when I got my first cell phone (I am 35). I thought I was so cool and “cutting edge”. Who would have ever thought it would be possible to be driving down the road and talking on the phone at the same time? I mean I had seen it on the Jetsons, but I never thought it would be a reality for the average person in my lifetime. The phone itself was about the size of a large brick and weighed about as much too. The antenna was about a foot long and the size of one of those ‘fat’ pencils we used in 1st grade. If you turned your head while you were on the phone, you were in danger of seriously injuring anyone within close proximity of you. I remember thinking that 30 free minutes was an awesome benefit, because I couldn’t afford to pay the $4 per minute charge if I went over.

Today, it would be hard to find someone with a cell phone like my old one. Cell phones are now about the size of a credit card and everyone from age 12 to 112 has one. Today’s cell phones can play any music you like, you can play video games on them, and some of them even play movies! The days of huge phones and 30 free minutes are long gone (thankfully). The truth is, cell phones are not a wonder to us anymore--they have become common. Why is it that things we once regarded as marvelous become ordinary over time?

I think that as people become more ‘enlightened’, we tend to lessen the role that God plays in our everyday lives. For instance, in elementary school we learn what the sun is made of and how it works. Because we have so much knowledge of the sun, we forget that every sunrise is a miracle of God. We know what causes a rainbow, we even know what colors make up that rainbow (anyone remember ROYGBIV? -red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet), but over the course of time we have seen so many rainbows we fail to remember that they are a symbol God’s promise to never flood the earth again. With all the medical advances we have today, when a person is healed of a disease, that healing is often seen as something performed by modern medicine and not God’s miracle. In other words, the ‘smarter’ we become, the less we give God credit for the miracles we see on a daily basis. The sunrise that you saw this morning is no less of a miracle than the first sunrise. God shows Himself in our lives everyday and we take it for granted. God is alive and working His miracles throughout time and space. It’s time we sat up and took notice.