iFaith from the iPhone

June 10, 2010

Tuesday morning I was glued to my iPad for two hours following the live feed from WWDC10, Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference. That’s right. I just came out of the closet. I’m a Christian Lesbian Gadget Geek. I embrace my whole self and make no apologies for it.

The WWDC is the annual conference (i.e. pep rally, cult gathering) when Steve Jobs announces the latest and greatest “You Must Own This If You Ever Hope to Have a Fulfilling Life” Apple product and this year’s star of the show, the iPhone4, didn’t fail to impress. Front and back camera with flash. HD video recording. iMovie installed. Video chat. App folders. Multi-tasking. Gyroscope. Faster speed, longer battery life, higher resolution.

Wait. I need a minute.

Sorry. It’s just so hard for me to see the computer screen with misty-eyes.

Oh, I can hear you now. No seriously I can. I can hear you, and what I hear you saying with an ever-so slightly edgy tone in your voice (don’t even try to deny it!) is this… “So what does your pathetic obsession with all things iGadgety have to do with God or faith or being a Christian Lesbian?”

Fine. Mock me now but in a minute you’re going to regret prematurely jumping all over my little pony and doubting me. But I, being gracious and good, will forgive you. In fact, consider it already done. Absolution is yours my Sister.

So here’s where I was heading if you would have just given me the benefit of the doubt…

A traditional happening and mega-highlight of Steve’s keynote speech is the moment when he whips out the soon to be released device of the hour and gives a live demo of it’s new features. Usually, the demo comes off without a hitch. Until this year. It was the most perfectly awkward technological glitchy moment I’ve ever seen at a WWDC.

It went something like this. In preparing to live demo the new bust-an-eyeball resolution of the new iPhone4 Steve went to open up the same web page on both an iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 so a side by side comparison could be projected up onto the massive stage screen, but instead what he got were two side by side images of web browsers unable to make a connection due to the number of attendees in the audience who were overloading the auditorium WiFi with all their real-time blogging, facebooking and tweeting. The only way Steve was eventually able to get access to the internet and continue the demo was to plead with the audience to turn off their WiFi-run equipment so he could get a solid connection. Essentially he told them to all shut up and shut down.

How often have we experienced something similar in our own lives when all we want is to make a clear connection with God so that we can know, really know, what God is saying to us but it seems we can’t get through. I don’t know what God wants me to do. I keep waiting for God to say something but I’m not hearing God say anything. I feel like I’m not able to connect with God anymore. Others have no problem speaking for God about my life but everyone is saying something different and besides, I don’t want others to tell me what God is saying; *I want to hear God speak.

It seems the biggest hindrance at one time or another for many of us in hearing from God was due to the interference coming from everyone else. How could we ever hope to connect directly with God when everyone else was blogging, facebooking, tweeting, preaching, counseling, advising and blathering on and on about what they knew God was really saying to us. Voices of condemnation. Voices of consolation. Voices calling us to repentance. Voices calling us to acceptance. Voices telling us God disapproved of who we were and what we were doing. Voices telling us God loved us just as we were. So many voices coming from so many directions that even when we heard a faint intimate whisper of God breaking through to our soul we doubted it because of the sheer number and volume of other the voices coming at us. Our connection seemed weaker than everyone else’s because while we questioned and wondered and struggled, they all seemed so certain. So absolute.

Steve pleaded with the crowd to shut things down on their end so he could get a solid connection and sometimes we need to do the same thing but rather than leaving the action to others we take action to limit how much we’ll take in from outside ourselves so we can listen to what’s being said within. That’s what it took for me in reconciling my faith and sexuality. I put aside all the gay-affirming books and all the ex-gay books. I put aside the theological arguments and biblical interpretations. I stopped looking to others to tell me what was right and what path God would have me walk. I gathered all the information. I did the legwork and the research. I studied and observed and explored. Then I put it aside to be alone with God, to hear from God, to be led by God.

Here’s the thing we need to realize. Our connection with God is never broken. God is always in dialogue with us, Spirit speaking to spirit. God is only silent when we need to be in silence with God. Can you trust that? If you sign off from all the others voices, including mine, that might presume in anyway to know what’s true for you in your personal relationship with God can you trust that God will be faithful to speak to you and that you will be faithful to listen and respond to God’s calling?

I know I’ve said this all before but when I was reminded it of again in such a perfect little moment at the WWDC, I couldn’t help but circle the wagons around it one more time. Trust God. Trust yourself. And for the time being and for as long as you need, tell the rest of us to shut down and sign off.

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*I’m going to assume we’re all on the same page that when we talk about God speaking to us we’re not referring to an audible voice but rather an inner knowing, a feeling, a sense, a nudge. We hear God speaking to us within the words of Scripture. We hear God speak to us in an encounter with someone else or in an experience that plays out in an ordinary day. However it is that you hear God speak to you, that’s what I’m talking about.

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Posted in Devotionals, News and Events, Techno Nothingness