Being the good and protection oriented citizens that we are, Robert and I have smoke detectors strategically placed in our house, AND we also change the batteries in them twice a year as recommended.  However, they will occasionally not make it to the next “official” change time, and they ALWAYS stop working in the middle of the night.  Never in the daytime, when people are prepared to fix them, but always at midnight.  And the beep….beep….beep….beep will awaken even the soundest sleepers!  This happened to us the other night, and it was the usual exciting time of “your turn to check” and then the fumbling around to follow the ungodly noise and jerking the battery out until morning, when you can actually remember where they stay.

Robert got up half asleep and found the offending detector, removed the battery, and came back to bed.  We rolled over, and immediately heard another beep.  Then another.  I gently nudged him (he will say punched) and told him to repeat the battery removal with smoke detector number two.  My extremely intelligent husband said at that point “that’s the same detector (not wanting to get up again) and of course, when it beeped again, I informed him that it was not.  He said, as it beeped yet again, “I’m telling you it is, they have a capacitor, and there is stored up energy in it still.  The beeps are getting further apart and they will stop.”  Really??  At midnight he comes up with capacitor and stored energy??  So I actually fell for it for a couple of minutes, and found myself TIMING the distance between the beeps, as ashamed as I am to admit it!  When I realized they were still happening at regular intervals, I insisted he get up and “check the other stupid detector!”  So he did, and took that battery out, and finally there was peace and quiet in our house.

When I woke up the next morning, I was laughing and still shaking my head at the creativity of his attempts to explain away the continued beeps, all in an effort to not get back up and deal with the second detector. He stood by his theory, and downplayed it all by saying he couldn’t tell that the noise was coming from a different place.  And so it was, until God began to speak to me about the spiritual lesson involved.  Especially today, in our daily walks with Him, there are many dangers (the smoke/fire potential) around us…violence, sin, temptation….and all true believers in Jesus as Savior and Lord have a built-in detector (the Holy Spirit) to keep us alert to those dangers and protect us.

Our spiritual batteries also need recharging/replacing, and WAY more often than twice a year!  We’re talking daily and/or hourly, always.  But unfortunately, there are many things that can distract us, and keep us from recharging – almost always our own fault.  And after a time, the beeps begin…the Holy Spirit keeps His promise, as does the Lord, to alert us to the fact that we have strayed.  The beeps begin loud and frequent, and should grab our attention.  Unlike the other detectors, though, they can be ignored..and just as in my hubby’s thoughts, they can get softer and further apart, eventually being completely unnoticed.  At this point, the dangers of the world become a reality, and our hearts and lives become vulnerable and usually attacked  by them.

So what’s the answer?  The answer is being diligent about our walk and relationship with the Lord.  Studying His word, prayer, and complete dependence on Him will keep that detector primed and ready to work…and save us from SO much heartache. And just as we have physical devices in place to keep our homes from being destroyed, how much more so should we have the spiritual ones in fine shape too?  May it be our goal to check our batteries, and keep our lives in His will!