By Shewanda Riley

I just knew it was going to be a wonderful day. Praise music woke me up, I had
a wonderful early morning devotion, and my morning classes were fantastic. This was
during the time I was working on my doctorate, so I was excited that I’d finished my
school homework early and planned to spend the afternoon working on a few writing
projects.

But all those plans changed when I got home…. No telephone, tv or internet
service. After calling the phone company, I was reassured that a technician would be
out in a few hours to fix the problem. I don’t know how the phone representative did
it, but she tested the line and reassured me that it wasn’t the signal. According to her
tests, all the wiring, interfaces and connections were working fine. The problem was
probably something on the outside.

As promised, within a few hours, a technician came and began working on the
problem. I patiently watched the tech go to where the box was, then outside to my
back yard, then to his truck for over an hour. Finally, he came back inside and said. “I
got to go to the box around the corner. I think that’s where the problem is.” When I
asked what box he was talking about, he explained how at first he wanted to make sure
that the signal was being sent okay. He then wanted to make sure that the connections
that received the signal were working correctly.

He said since everything else was working fine, it had to be “the box” around the
corner. After about 10 minutes, he came back and said with a great look of
satisfaction, “You’re all fixed and back online. There was a problem with the box.
“Before he left, he explained that even though everything inside was hooked up and
working right, all it took was one loose connection in the box to make me lose
connection and service.

This situation reminded me of how sometimes we allow outside interference:
words, actions, and behaviors of others to interfere in our relationship with God. Even
when we have a strong connection to God and go to church, read the bible, fast, and

pray, unintentional interference with our ability to hear and obey God happens. In the
past, I’ve made the mistake of listening to well meaning friends and their “great advice.”
Like Job’s friends in Job 2:11, they initially tried to comfort me but in the end like Job, I
regretted listening to them. In Job 16: 2, he acknowledges his mistake in listening to
his friends and calls them “miserable comforters.”

Romans 2:12 says, “For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with
God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight.” With so many distractions
from social media, balancing work, and family life and even something as honorable as
church work, we end up only hearing the word of God for our lives. The reality is that
he also wants us to be obedient doers of His word as well as stated in James 1:22.

Shewanda Riley is a Fort Worth, Texas based author of “Love Hangover: Moving From
Pain to Purpose After a Relationship Ends” and “Writing to the Beat of God’s Heart: A
Book of Prayers for Writers.” Email her at preservedbypurpose@gmail.com or follow
her on Twitter @shewanda.