What is God's Cell Phone Number

How many ways can someone communicate with you? Check each appropriate means from the list below:

Home Phone
Work Phone
Cellular Phone
Pager
Personal Email
Work Email
Home Postal Address
Work Postal Address

Now, how does God communicate with you?

I pondered this question as it applies to me recently as a group of men from my church gathered together for a morning of prayer. After being led in some thoughtful discussion, we broke apart with our Bibles to spend some time in solitary prayer. At one point, when I needed to get a cup of coffee, I took a moment to look out over the parking lot and my attention was attracted to the row of cell phone antennas sprouting up there. We live in the "information age," a time when we can be contacted any time of day, anywhere in the world. There are even satellite cell phones that will work from the jungles of darkest Africa to either pole. There is nothing wrong with cell phones, but it did cause me to wonder if God has a cell phone number, and led me to ask myself, how does God communicate with me?

I have said before that Prayer is a means of communicating with God. You'll notice I don't say it is a means of talking to God, or do I say it is a means of God talking to us. It is more than that. Communicate comes from the Latin communicatus, past participle of communicare to impart, participate. It is defined as communion, which is defined as an intimate fellowship or rapport. That is what God wants to do when we pray. He wants us to speak with Him but also to listen as well. Prayer, like communication, involves both parties actively listening while the other person is speaking and vice versa.

I have to admit, though, that often I will pray in a fashion that is not communicative. I will list my prayer concerns to God without taking the time to listen. But how do I change that?

At the morning of prayer, I spent most of my prayer time praying and reading Psalms. One in particular caught my attention, and I went back to it while pondering the question of how God communicates with me. Psalm 37 gives us four concrete instructions that seem to contradict with the hustle and bustle of today's world but are very necessary for an effective prayer life.

First, the psalmist says, we are to Trust in the Lord (verse 3), then to Take Delight in the Lord (4), then Commit our way to Him (5) and finally, Be Still before the Lord (7). It was that last one that kept making me think.

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices Psalm 37:7

Be still before the Lord, now there's something to struggle with. Between the demands of family, work, and church, how can I be still for very long? Of course, the flip side of that is, between the demands of family, work, and church, how can I afford not to be still before God every day? And this has been increasingly difficult since work has crowded an extra 40 hours into the last two weeks of the month. Amazingly, though, God still manages to reach out and make me stop, although not always willingly.

The other night, as I was working furiously in my study to launch a web site, I had a stack of CDs in my stereo, more as background noise than anything else, when God decided He wanted my attention. I've learned as God has grasped my attention over the years, that He has a range of methods that range from hitting me over the head with a 2x4 to a quiet note that just grabs my attention where I am. Frequently I'll stop what I'm doing because I can almost guarantee that His message is more important than what I'm occupied with. That night it was a Michael Card song that just jarred off key. Not the music, but the words. It was one of those songs that, as I worked, the message filtered from my ears to my brain, which processed the information and then said, HUH?

It was a CD of songs about children in the life of Jesus and the lines that caught my ear were "Can't you keep those children quiet? Hosanna. This is no place for a riot. Hosanna." Now if there's any set of words that don't seem to go together it is those lines. Hosanna is a cry of adoration and acclamation, and what does that have to do with keeping children quiet? So I had to go back a step, find that song and listen to it, several times. I pulled the jacket cover and read the words while Michael sang them.

The song is actually a reference to Jesus' cleansing the temple of the moneychangers (see John 2:13-25). How appropriate that I was letting my work take up my prayer time, just like the priests had allowed the merchants into the temple. I had many excuses for getting the work done, none really related to the overtime money, but the fact of the matter was that I was letting my prayer and Bible study slide. So I stopped and was still before God. And, over the last two weeks, though it has been difficult, I've been trying to be still before God first.

And it has been worth while. Being still before God gives me a peace that helps me get through these hectic workdays. Oh, and the whole chorus of the Michael Card song, the fragment of which jarred my ears so, is an appropriate ending, since if we don’t offer our praises to God, we’ll find the paving stones we walk on singing in our stead.

Can't you keep those children quiet!
Hosanna
This is no place for a riot
Hosanna
If you try to quell these girls and boys
They very rocks will shout with joy
And from the mouths of little babes
You have brought forth perfect praise
Hosanna to the King
Hosanna to the King
Hosanna to the King of kings

HOSANNA