The Boom Box

Every visit to Radio Shack as a child of the eighties was a trip into an electronic wonderland. They had everything from robot arms for picking up small objects to TRS-80 Micro Color Computers (with FOUR kilobytes of RAM)! Over the years we collected quite a haul from this store.

It turns out, however, that our most “hair-raising” purchase was a grey, rather pedestrian looking, portable cassette radio.

Before the days of isolating ourselves in our own private “pods”, music was seen as something to be shared with those around us. The bigger, the badder, the louder the better!

Enter the “Boom Box”.

Now boom boxes came in all sizes, from petite to truly gargantuan. The trick was to find one that you could JUST rest on your shoulder so as to get your auditory canal as close to the ear shattering blasts of sound waves as possible.

People would actually walk around with these monstrosities perched on their shoulders like noisome robotic parrots.

Years later, legions of chiropractors are reaping the rewards.

Our boom box was on the puny side. It could receive its power from a trunk load of batteries or from an electrical cord. Batteries costing what they did, we made do with the power cord.

Now we didn’t exactly ABUSE this radio, but it did get a fair amount of use. Enough use to rub a bare spot on the power cord. A bare spot about six inches from the radio that sizzled with 120 volts of Alternating Current.

I was unaware of the existence of the aforementioned bare spot; I just wanted to listen to music from a boom box like “everyone else” did.

Now who hasn’t done something to make themselves feel a little normal?

So one day, I turned on the radio, cranked up the volume, and planted the box on my shoulder, pinching the power cord onto my left collarbone.

At first, I thought I was stung by a bee. I heard a very angry buzzing sound coming from my clavicle. As I thrust the radio off my shoulder, the buzzing stopped and I saw a welt where I had received the electrical burn.

I have never, to this day, placed a radio on my shoulder again.

Great power flows through the electrical circuits in our house. When this power is allowed to “run its course” as intended, wonderful things come as a result. Light to banish the darkness, heat to ward off the chill, and microwaves to cook food for our nourishment.

The Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, also gives power that can revolutionize our lives.

The Holy Spirit is not some impersonal source of power or energy that flows from God. He is God. He leads us towards truth. He fills us with peace that surpasses our understanding. And by living inside us, He transplants His very nature within us.

It is His work within us that sets us apart as a curious people.

God the Father created us, God the Son saved us, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies us.

May His Power flow through us.

Joe


Related Verses
Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

John 14:15-31
“If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to him, “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?”

Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe.

“I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the ruler of this world approaches. He has no power over me, but I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love the Father. Come, let’s be going.

John 16:5-15
“But now I am going away to the One who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged.

“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’