Last week I received an email from my wife’s second cousin, Bob Thirsk.
“What’s so unusual about that?”
Well, Bob is an Astronaut with NASA and has been in the International Space Station since June of this year. He is scheduled for a return to earth in the middle of December. Bob is a Flight Engineer, examining the long-term effects of zero gravity as both a test subject and a physician.
“HELLO FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION” was the subject of the email, and he went on to speak about a few mundane matters. I read it with interest and promptly answered his email and sent it off. I am not permitted to quote from his email, but I have added a picture from the group he sent us.
Then a few days later I reflected upon what this communication exchange had entailed. Bob was chosen from thousand of Canadian applicants for the space program 26 years ago. He is both a medical doctor and an engineer with a 
number of specialties in each field. He has been on two previous space missions and has spent most of his adult life training for space research. One could only hazard a guess, but the cost to put Bob in space would run into the tens of billions of dollars. His skill-set would be matched by only a handful of people in the world.
In spite of this, when I receive a communication from space, I whip off an email in response without a moment’s hesitation, and very little thought.
But you know? This is not the first time I’ve received a message from beyond. God gave me the Bible – his written word. Have I often been equally blasé about this? I’m afraid so. When you think about it, the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” or its subset, “familiarity breed complacency” applies here. We have become used to communication over vast distances with a few pecks of the keyboard to the point that we just don’t give it much thought.
And, if you are like me, it’s also easy to dismiss the significance of God communication directly with us. But aren’t you glad he did?
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