DISCONNECTED

I have been without a phone for exactly one week. It is so true that you really don't have any idea on how much you rely one something until it is gone. Now it is not that I am missing out on hundreds of phone calls a day or anything but it is the inconvenience of not being able to contact whomever I want, whenever I want that is frustrating. For the last week I have been planning my phone calls around each other. I have been waiting until I have had at least three calls to make before I walk from my apartment over to school to use a payphone. I have also stopped phoning anyone just to catch up or chat. Using the phone has become something that I do only when I have no other option. It has also been an inconvenience when I have had people over. Because the intercom system is hooked up to the phone line, when people come to visit, I have no way of knowing when they have arrived. I have to make my best guess and go down stairs and wait. (This will be especially annoying tomorrow when I have a 3 hour window for when the repair man is to show up!!)

This might be a distant parallel, but think about the phone as Jesus for a second. As a Christian I don't even want to think about what my life would be like if I had to go a week without Jesus in it. I rely on Him for everything. Imagine if He wasn't there all the time to talk to whenever about whatever! Or if we had to wait until we had at least three really good prayer requests before we were able to speak with him. Or if He was like my broken intercom system and I had to make a guess about when He was actually going to show up to listen to my prayers. Imagine if we couldn't talk to Jesus about the everyday happenings of our lives, if He would only listen if we had an extremely necessary request that couldn't wait and had to be dealt with. What a life that would be.

The truth of the matter is, that I never have to worry about any of that. Jesus is always there to listen to my prayers, no matter what. And it doesn't matter if I have one request or one hundred, He is going to listen to them all. But how often do I take advantage of that? I know that I have a pretty good prayer life, but how often do I keep things to myself instead of passing them onto Jesus? How often do I wait until something is an urgent necessary matter before I start praying about it? Why as Christians are we so often reactive with our prayers instead of proactive? Why is it that we so often turn to pray as a last resort when it seems there is no other option?

Ah...It seems as though I now have one more thing to talk to Jesus about...And then I will go find a payphone to make some necessary "can't wait till later" phone calls.