Several years ago, there was a Verizon commercial you might remember. A guy with a construction hard hat on his cellphone was asking, “Can you hear me now? Good!” Or tromping through a swamp, “Can you hear me now? Good!” Or in an office chair wheeling his way from one cubicle to the other, “Can you hear me now? Good!” In the middle of an Ohio cornfield, “Can you hear me now? Good!” In the hot remote Mohave Desert, “Can you hear me now? Good!” Bundled up in an Alaska snowstorm, “Can you hear me now? Good!

Can you hear me now? Good! He was Verizon’s Test Man, making sure reception was good wherever a customer would go. Obviously, the message Verizon Wireless wanted to give was that it never stopped working to make sure you had a clear connection.

It’s an impressive aim but the reality is something else. We know too well the limitations of any company. The claim is often for an ideal that has its limitations. In the case of the largest cellphone provider, there are places you go and there’s little or no reception.

I’m glad to say, that isn’t the case with God. No matter where you go, God is able to offer a clear connection, a strong clear signal, regardless of weather conditions, regardless of location.

But, you say, sometimes I pray and it doesn’t seem like God is listening. Sometimes I listen and doesn’t seem like God is speaking. Sometimes I seek to communicate with God, but there’s no clear signal.

But, I would ask, who’s to blame? Is it poor service from above, or does the cause lie with us? The Psalmist says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” (Psalm 66:18) Like the song reminds us, “If God’s not there, guess who went away.”

Such was the case in the days of Samuel when he was a boy assisting Eli, the high priest of God. The Bible account says that, “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” (1 Samuel 3:1)

Not because of God was this lack of communication, but the leaders and the people had disconnected themselves from their Lord by their compromise and undermining of God’s ways and laws. Their sin had separated them from their God. It was a time of spiritual darkness — spiritual disconnect.

Do you ever experience spiritual disconnect? Does your mind wander when you decide to read God’s word and pray? And when you do pray, do you feel like your petitions never ascend higher than the ceiling? Well, the good news is that God is still there. It may not feel like it, but He is. The solution to spiritual darkness is found in the promise, “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord and He will have mercy on him; and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6, 7)

There is nothing that God wants more than to bless His children with peace and joy. I conclude with another comforting promise from Isaiah, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” (Isaiah 29:11-13)

Pastor Alvaro Sauza can be reached at the Sandpoint Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2235 Pine St., or by phone at 208-263-3648.