Bible Text: John 17:3 | Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | “I can nearly remember the exact moment…when I began to lose credibility with my children,” Lynn writes. “When they turned into teenagers, I started having difficulty functioning while they were in the same room. Once when we were on vacation and in a hotel room, I refused to try to set the digital clock. Of course my teenagers…seemed to be able to work every button.”*

It’s so true. A teenager knows how to do anything on a computer. Lynn notes that her son “can hook up all kinds of wires to stereos, lighting systems, guitars and amplifiers without instructions.”** Yet, she notes, he can’t aim and hit the wastebasket, turn off a light switch, drink from a glass instead of the milk container, or write legibly.

Actually, we all know different things at different times. We learn what is important to us. A teenager needs to know about wires and speakers and computers to communicate with his friends. “He will learn to turn off the lights when he is paying the light bill…,” Lynn notes; “he will learn to have plenty of gas in the car when he is traveling with his own teenagers.”***

Many of us have had to learn about computers and digital cameras and cell phones and answering machines because they have become tools we need in our lives. We simply cannot afford not to know how to use them. It’s true that we learn what is most important and necessary in our lives.

But there is one thing—actually, a Person–we cannot afford not to know, and that is God. You don’t have to be college-educated or computer-savvy to know Him. He has made the first move and invited us to have a relationship with Him. Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Yes, knowing Him will make a difference in this life and for eternity.

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* Lynn Assimacopoulos, “When I Lost the Need to Know,” taken from Humor for a Mom’s Heart (West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Company, 2002), 161.
** Ibid., 162.
*** Ibid.