Back in ancient times when I was a high school senior, I decided to take a typing class because I wanted to find a faster, less tedious way to record information than handwriting (cursive). I took a lot of teasing from my male friends until I pointed out to them, “Where else could I find a class that is more than 90% females?” That immediately got their minds on something other than my course choice.
It was in that typing class that I learned the importance of positioning and orientation. You must have your fingers in proper position on the keys. Then you can learn the orientation of the other keys from that position. For example, your right index finger is above the j but if you want to type an h you move that finger one key to your left. When we love God with our entire heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:30) we are in the correct position to learn our orientation to others in order to reach out and touch them.
By the time I graduated, I could type 35 to 40 words a minute. The Air Force decided to make use of that ability by sending me to a six month Morse Intercept Operator training course. It was there I learned about involuntary reflex. Once my mind connected the sound patterns of Morse Code to the letters, I could position my hands on the keys and then automatically type the letters as quickly as the sound patterns reached my ears, up to 30 words per minute, without any thought of what I was typing. Once we have developed a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have learned to recognize the promptings of His Holy Spirit within us, we can automatically respond to those promptings without thought or question.
Today we no longer use the manual or electric typewriters I used, so we now call it data entry instead of typing, but the keyboard is exactly the same as the ones on those outdated machines. Using the keyboard on my laptop to write emails or blog posts, especially late at night, I sometimes inadvertently position my fingers in the wrong position and type a sentence or two without paying attention only to find unintelligible garbage on the screen forcing me to erase and reenter the information. If what we are doing in life doesn’t make any sense, maybe we need to correct our positioning with God’s help. There have also been times when I am working on a blog post when my fingers seem to have a mind of their own as I enter what the Holy Spirit prompts me to share. When I read the words on the screen I am amazed at what my involuntary reflex has entered. It is at times like that we find those promptings are as much for us as they are for the others we reach out to touch.