I wish my life were on a five-second delay.
The hi-jinks of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake have completely changed the meaning of “live television.” Where the Grammys, Oscars, and Super Bowl half-time shows have always been right-now-see-it-as-it-is live TV, that is no longer true. This year’s Grammy awards were broadcast with a five-minute delay—just to be sure there were no “wardrobe malfunctions,” or “verbal malaprops.” No one wants the public relations chaos that followed the Super Bowl.
Rush Limbaugh has a time delay on his talk radio show—so crazy people will not be heard shouting crazy things to the world through the EIB network. Similar delays are commonplace on all radio talk shows. Why trust your credibility to someone else’s poor choices? Why let someone embarrass you on your own show?
The delay simply offers the programmers/engineers/audio and video geniuses just enough time to “fix” the problem. They bleep out the bad words, toss in a replacement commercial, skip past the “malaprop,” or place digital fuzziness over bared skin. They take out the bad stuff so the owner/host/network/sponsor will still look good. The delay makes everything come out OK. Whew!
I wish my life were on a five-second delay.
When an idiot launches his SUV into my lane without blinking, I could get angry, shout, and make nasty gestures at him … then quickly repair the tape so all it shows is me smiling kindly as he nicks the “Honk if you love Jesus” sticker on my bumper.
There are so many good uses for a five-second delay. I’d use it to pull back things I wish I hadn’t said to my wife. To undo bad decisions at work. To change my wrong answers on a test. To seem good when I was really bad. Trouble is, five seconds wouldn’t be enough. Sometimes it’s an hour, or a day, before I come to my senses and realize that I shouldn’t have done that!
I wonder if God has a five-second delay on His Universal Broadcast Network?
Nope. Everyone around the universe sees stuff “as it happens.” They see how poorly Christians live like Christ. They hear the angry words of good people. They watch while spiritual giants live as moral dwarfs. They see good intentions abandoned like candy bar wrappers. The watchers hear God say, “These are my kids, I love them and they’ve chosen to live like me.” Then they see us live on our own, behaving like the Devil. There is no delay, no digital fuzziness. Just instant painful truth.
Then God clears His throat and asks, “Child, could you use an eraser?”
When I nod my heart in submission, He smiles and bathes me in His blood. “Though your sins are blood-red,” He scrubs, “they’ll be snow-white. If they’re red like crimson, they’ll be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18, The Message).
A five-second delay would be useless in God’s world. He’s into truth, public repair, and personal transformation! The enemy is into digital fuzziness. God’s into grace.
Dick Duerksen is the director of mission development for Florida Hospital in Orlando.
