Redial

When your phone is in your pocket and, by your right movement and pressure (or wrong, depending on your perspective), it dials a number, some people call that a butt-call. I think God butt-calls me all the time. I’m just sitting there minding my own business (or somebody else’s) and my “phone” rings—not actually my phone; but something gets my attention the way my phone does when it rings. Then all I hear at the other end of my newly-focused attention is silence.

Sometimes I imagine God, phone in hip pocket, busy doing critical God-things, leaning back a little too hard against the universe and inadvertently hitting the redial or speed-dial button. You know that feeling. You have a sense that God purposefully has directed your attention, and is very present in the moment, but there’s no particular voice or message—just silence.

I used to be annoyed when this would happen; but then one day it occurred to me that, in order for this to happen, MY number must have been the last one that God called, or even that I'm on God's speed-dial, and I thought, “How cool is THAT?!” Of course, the way God operates, the fact that my “phone” rings in no way excludes your “phone” from ringing, and everyone else’s, for that matter. Come to think of it, butt-calling all of us on a regular basis, just so we don’t completely miss all of the ways God is at work in our lives, might be a top priority on the list of Critical God-Things. How cool is THAT?!

© 2012 Todd Jenkins