Sound the Alarm

Dear Church Family,

They say, "Where there is smoke, there is fire." That may be true, but I discovered an equally true statement this week: "Where there is a smoke alarm going off, there isn't always smoke."

The alarm in the sanctuary started blaring yesterday afternoon—and let me tell you, it's really loud. Even though it said it was on the ground floor, after walking through the entire children's area, including the rock room, we found nothing. No smoke. No fire. Not even a hint of either one.

We shut the alarm off, and moments later, the Fire Department arrived. (Our system automatically calls them, which I'm grateful for.) They were wonderful, walking the entire space with us. Finding everything fine, they left to be ready for the next call.

Five minutes later, the alarm went off again. I reset it. Thirty seconds later, it was blaring. Eventually, we closed the doors and waited for the alarm company to troubleshoot the system.

Let me assure you—all is well. But standing there in that hallway, listening to that insistent alarm, I started thinking about what alarms really do. Our system was working perfectly. It was alerting us that something was wrong, even if that something turned out to be mechanical rather than dangerous.

A friend recently reminded me that fainting is the body's alarm system. When your brain isn't getting enough oxygen, you lose consciousness and fall. But that fall? It's actually the body's way of recovering. Blood struggles to reach the brain when we're upright but flows easily when we're horizontal. God designed our bodies to sound alarms when something is needed—hunger pangs before we starve, uncontrollable yawns when we need sleep, pain when we need to stop and heal.

Our spiritual lives work the same way.

We rush from event to event, filling every moment. Often we fill them with good things—worthwhile things—but suddenly it can become more than we can handle. Our connection with God begins to slip away. Our spiritual lives grow dry. And somewhere deep inside, an alarm starts sounding.

The challenge is learning to hear it.

I believe the scriptures offer us the remedy: "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for God" (Psalm 37:7). Being still is like the body lying flat so blood can reach the brain again. Stillness is the recovery itself.

But then comes the harder part: waiting patiently.

I'll be honest—I'm not great at patience. I can be still for a moment, but then I want something to happen next. I want to see results, feel movement, check the box. But sometimes God asks us to simply wait. To let our bodies rest. To let our minds clear. To let the silence do its work.

I'm curious: Is your spirit calling for you to be still for a moment? Is there a place where God is inviting you to wait patiently rather than act immediately? Our world is busy and noisy. But I wonder what might happen if we all paused—just for a moment—to be still and wait.

With God's Peace,
Pastor Karl