By Gina Caswell Kelly
If you are as old as me, you can remember talking on the telephone that was hanging on the wall. Hopefully, yours had a long cord that you could stretch down the hallway to your bedroom, so you could talk in private. There was no call waiting. There was no caller ID. It rang and you answered it without even knowing who might be on the other end of the line! The sheer horror! If someone else called while you were on the phone, they got a busy signal and you had no clue anyone else was trying to reach you. Debbie and I both had boyfriends at the same time, so it was always a timing battle to see whose boyfriend would call first. Whoever’s called first would stay on the phone endlessly! I am saying this as the one whose boyfriend did not always call first and as the one who would stand outside Debbie’s door yelling at her to get off the phone and the one who would receive a half-hearted “sorry” when she finally got off and it was too late for my boyfriend to call. Debbie may tell you a totally different story. I would not believe her version for a second! This was also complicated by the fact that each boy also had a family with brothers and sisters who might have been waiting to make or receive their own phone calls! Also, girls did NOT call boys then. These were difficult and dark times.
In my office, I have an old rotary dial phone. It is obviously not hooked up, but it does make quite a conversation piece, even though that conversation cannot take place on the phone! I was thinking about how much talking on the phone has changed in my lifetime. It has changed dramatically! We now have phones in our pockets that seem to control us. We are lost if we go anywhere without our phone! You can call, of course, but most of the younger generation would much prefer you to text them. You can get a message to anyone anywhere and anytime on your cellphone. You can watch movies. You can play games. You can do calculations. You can shop. The things you can do on your phone these days are endless. What a change!!
Jeremiah 33:3 is often called God’s phone number. It says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” That verse was given to us long before the invention of the simplest of telephones, yet it has not changed. We are still able to call on God at any moment, from anywhere. And He will always answer! You don’t get a busy signal. You don’t get voice mail. You don’t get an automated response of any kind. You get God Himself! He is waiting to answer your call.
Next time you are playing with your phone when you should be working, studying, listening, sleeping, etc. think about God’s phone number and how He will never put you on hold. He is always listening and that makes a difference!
