Saturday Song: The Electric Light Orchestra, "Mr. Radio"

To most people, a radio is just a box which plays music or gives news reports. They have only a vague idea of how it receives signals and converts them into sound waves which our ears can hear.

But for me, my radio was my lifeline to the outside world. In my Deliverance from Jericho memoir, I wrote about how having my own radio made me feel a little less depressed at that institution.

One November afternoon in 1969, I happened to pick up a radio station from Edmonton, Alberta. Since my home town of Fort Saskatchewan was only twenty miles north of that city, I felt like I made contact with home by receiving that station.

The Electric Light Orchestra recorded a song about the comforting presence of a radio on their first album. I readily identified with it because of my experience at the blind school.

Hear this song here.

We Christians are also exiles, even though we've never set foot in heaven. But we do have a home waiting for us there when we die. John 14:2-3 (KJV) reminds us with the words of Jesus, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

The Word of God is our lifeline to heaven, as is prayer. Just as I felt a connection to my home through receiving that station, so we have an assurance of better things to come. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:18 (KJV), "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

A day will come when this world will be replaced with a better one. Revelation 21:4 (KJV) tells us this wonderful news. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Just as I left Jericho Hill School and never returned to it, so we won't have to live in captivity anymore. We'll be united with Jesus and all the faithful who followed him.

So, what do you think of what I've written and this song? Please let me know in the box below.

On Monday, I'll post about another Bible verse which people misquote and misapply.