By Dr. John E. Morgan

Pastor–Collinsville Baptist Church

My future father-in-law was acting strange.  I had no idea at the time that he was my future father-in-law.  I just knew that he was acting strange.  Weird.

Gloria had moved in kind of next door to me when I was in the eighth grade and she was in the seventh.  Her house was around the corner from mine.  Her back yard ran into the side of my back yard.  I could see her driveway and the side of her house from my front yard.

Her family was very nice.  Baptists.  Regular church goers.  She had a little sister and a littler brother. My little sister and her little sister got along well as they plotted to get Gloria and me together.  We ignored them until they gave up.

Her father was a kind, sensitive, loving man.  He taught a lot about what it means to be a Christian and a man..

But after they had lived there a while I began to notice something odd.  I noticed that he would sit in the car in the driveway for long periods.  Just sitting there.  Staring straight ahead.

What could this mean?  Was he just hunting a little peace away from the three females and baby boy in his house?  Was he a secret Soviet spy?  What was he doing just sitting in a car in his driveway?

It would be a long time before I got the answer.  He loved sports (one of the things we had in common).  He was an Ole Miss graduate.  And in that time of almost no games on TV, the only hope for a fan was to listen on the radio.  And none of the radio stations in Nashville carried Mississippi games, except occasionally when they were on the Saturday night radio game of the week. (I remember as a child listening to Billy Cannon run the punt back for LSU that beat Ole Miss 7-3.)

But Mr. Roberts had figured out that if he sat in the right spot in the driveway the car radio could pick up a Memphis station that carried Ole Miss games.  And so I would see him sitting outside in the cold (he seldom ran the heater – gasoline cost a quarter a gallon and who could afford that?).  He sat there listening to the mother ship send the Rebels into his driveway.

He was a person who felt great emotions.  I feel sure there were times he must have about broken the steering wheel during tense times in the game.  He loved his alma mater.

I listened to a lot of games on the radio.  But not by sitting in the cold in the driveway.  My team, Tennessee, came in just fine on my little transistor radio.  Would you have done it?  Would you have sat there in the cold?  I can assure you that his daughter would not have.

How about if you knew that God was going to be on the radio.  Would you listen then?  That was the plot of a movie called The Next Voice You Hear.  If you knew that God was going to be on the radio at 8:00 tonight would you listen?  In the movie most everybody does for a week.  I think most of us still would.  Of course, a lot of us would have to go out to our cars because we don’t use radios any more.  Who wouldn’t want to hear God?

And yet we ignore His voice every day.  In the Bible (you do say that it is God’s Word, don’t you?).  In times of prayer.  In Bible studies, Sunday School, etc.  In the voices of other Christians.  In the astoundingly beautiful mountains of northeast Alabama.  In a still, small voice when we most need it.  The reception is really good, if you are listening.

And sometimes we need to get out to our driveway or somewhere far away to listen for awhile.  ET phone home.  For Christians, this world is not our home.  We need to get away from the world at times to listen to Him.

Walter Roberts was a great Christian man.  He went to be the Lord many years ago.  He no longer needs a radio to hear God.  I am not sure about Ole Miss games.