A miracle is defined in the dictionary as “an event that appears unexplainable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.”
I recently heard a sermon preached on the subject of miracles, which has gotten me to thinking about miracles in a specific and limited way … one that plays a role in my life and that of enLighten’s. That, of course, would be in the area of communicating.
Let’s go back 2,000 years for a moment, to New Testament times. Of course, the Gospels are filled with miracles performed by Jesus. However, for my purposes, I’m focusing on the story in the book of John, Chapter 11 in particular … where Mary and Martha sent for Jesus because their brother Lazarus was dying and they know Jesus could heal him. How did they send for Him? There was not a postal service at that time, was there? Possibly a messenger could have gone on horseback, but I imagine that person more than likely ran or walked.
From my reading of history, not much changed in the fastest mode of communicating being any quicker than the speed of a galloping horse for the next 1,800 years! (Stay with me, we’re headed somewhere.)
Modern Miracles . . .
From this aspect, the modern form of communicating … electrically or electronically … did not begin until the 19th century when, in the early 1800s, the telegraph was invented and the Morse code created. What inspiration or “brain power” did God suddenly provide to men that brought about such advances in technology within a century … which included the steam engine and locomotive and, in the 1870s, invention of the light bulb – which led to the wiring of cities for electricity – and the telephone, which made possible the transmission of the human voice over a wire.
And, it’s been barely a century since the first radio broadcast took place using the system we today consider very “old fashioned,” AM, or Amplitude Modulation.
One can say that the “digital age” had its beginnings in the 1940s with the development of the first computer and the transistor … even though many would consider the arrival of the computer for home use and the development of the Internet as a more legitimate beginning.
Satellite Radio . . .
I give you all of this history as a lead-up to my saying that I believe this conduit by which we deliver the enLighten programming is absolutely one of God’s great miracles. I still marvel regularly at how it can possibly work … just like how that little device many of you hold in your hand that not only allows you to make and receive telephone calls, but connects you to your E-mail and the Internet as well.
Being that I’m older than Bill Gaither, my first experience with radio was as a child during and immediately following the Second World War. Hence, being able to receive 150 or so different station signals, all delivered through the air from a body sitting 22,000 miles above the earth is almost more that this old mind can comprehend. Yet, it all works, one station separated from the next … and all the data you see on your radio screen being delivered as well. And this same signal can and is receivable just about everywhere throughout North America, from way up in Canada and southern Alaska down into Mexico and several of the Caribbean islands.
As Armand Weller, a longtime pastor friend of ours likes to say, “ain’t God good?” But we might ask, why now? Why did our God choose this time to provide man with the intelligence to create all these wonderful devices through which we can communicate? Why has he facilitates such rapid advances in such a short span of time?
Regardless, I am thankful every day and rejoice , as I’m sure you do, that we have the gift of satellite radio and its availability for bringing you the Southern Gospel music you love.
Just one more reason for us to praise our Lord!!!
