Call from God on my Samsung Galaxy, part 2

Every morning God calls me on my smartphone.  At 8:00 a.m. to be exact.  And He’s always on time.  It doesn’t matter if I’m traveling or in the middle of eating breakfast or fast at work catching up on emails.  He always calls.  For that I'm deeply grateful.

Sometimes if I’m in another room when God Calls, my wife calls out to me, “Steeeaaave…God’s calling.”  I’m not sure I’m totally comfortable with this however.  I mean, think about it.  If I happen to be missing God’s Call, that’s bad enough, but now I’ve also got my wife reminding me that I’m missing God’s Call!  See what I mean?

So how does it work?  My daughter’s pastor, Tammy Melchien, gave me the idea in her sermon one Sunday when she was talking about how Scott Peck (author of The Road Less Traveled) learned the difference between “praying” and “being available to God.”  You can read Scott Peck’s story in my previous post, below. 

 

After hearing and seeing that there IS a difference I decided to test it out.  So in my Quiet Time the next week, I worked it out with the Spirit, asking “when would be the best time to be available to God every day?”  We chose 8:00 a.m.  So I set a reminder on my phone to go off every morning at 8:00 a.m. and labeled it, “Time with God.” 

 

Now you might say, “wait a minute, that’s not God calling… it’s just you setting an alarm to remind yourself to pray.”  In the beginning, that’s what came across my mind sometimes too.  But after doing this for several months I’ve come to see that God is actually at work through this system.  Even though it’s a human creation, God can and does work through it.  Just like He works through all of the ideas, technology, discoveries, culture and structures that we create.  Even the printing up of a Bible on pieces of paper, using ink, and binding the pages together between two pieces of leather—is a relatively new invented technology.  And God has no trouble working through this new technology—speaking through it, even.

 

It’s reassuring to hear God Calling each morning, without fail.  It reminds me of the character of God:  God’s faithfulness, for example.  Unlike a friend who may quickly give up after a minute or two, God’s Ring never stops until I turn it off.  Or, His unfaltering love for me—He calls me just the same the very next day even after I have traveled to a breakfast meeting the previous morning and had to hit the “Dismiss” button while in the car.  (It’s unnerving to hit the “Dismiss” button when the phone message reads, “Time with God.”)

 

Read more about how to be available to God on my blog, "Call From God on my Samsung Galaxy, part 1."

Call From God on my Samsung Galaxy, part 1

M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, one of the best-selling books of all-time, tells a story about after he became a Christ-follower. He started going to a local convent for spiritual guidance.  A sister there asked him about time for praying – personal celebration.  

Peck said, "Oh, I pray.  I pray when I'm out walking, when I'm going to sleep at night, when I'm listening to a patient and when I don't know what else to do. I pray a lot.” 

She pressed him gently, "Do you set aside any specific times to pray?" 

"Well, no," he said, "that seems unnecessarily rigid and un-spontaneous."

She pushed back again, "Maybe so, but what I hear you saying is that you simply pray to God when you feel like it, whenever it's convenient to you.  That sounds a lot like a one-way relationship to me; as if you are willing to relate to God only on your terms.  If you love God as much as you say you do - and I suspect you do - then I think you owe it to Him to set aside some times to be available to Him whether you feel like it or not, some time that will be His and not just yours."

Peck says he found that difficult to argue with and so he set about carving time out of his life every day when he says he does “'nothing' in the world's terms other than attempt in my own inadequate way to be available to God.”   

My daughter’s pastor, Tammy Melchien, (Community Christian Church/Lincoln Square) shared this story from Scott Peck as part of her sermon one Sunday when she was talking about the difference between “praying” and “being available to God.”  Putting this into action has been a turning point in my own daily prayer life.  You can read about it in part 2 of this blog, “Call from God on my Samsung Galaxy.”

Renewed at Noon

I made an exception on Ash Wednesday this year because two of my dear Chinese kids invited me to a basketball game as their guests. But I felt strange on the morning of—. Something in my Spirit hungered for the familiar but unsettling words when the ashes are drawn across my forehead, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Is that weird or what?

 

So I searched for a noon service.  Of course--who better to turn to than my Catholic brothers and sisters?  I jumped in my truck and took off for the Basilica, downtown.

 

Already streams of people were flowing in from everywhere—just like going to a game at Target Field.  Lots of young people.  For the next hour I sat among hundreds—at noon!  In a Church.  On a Wednesday.  In the middle of downtown Minneapolis.  Surrounded by rich smells of incense and monastic-like music, dawdling along in an un-hurried pace, in an other-worldly setting.  It was a “perfect storm” that recharged my spiritual batteries.

 

The enormous heights of the ceiling kept drawing my eyes and mind... up.  And there, all around us, were brothers and sisters from centuries gone by looking down on us from their painted faces in the stained glassed windows perched high above our earthly worship. The sweet haunting verses that were chanted from somewhere unseen floated out upon the Assembly and imbued our collective spirit with a touch of the heavenly realm.  Sweet.

 

Words were spoken and read and preached and sung and prayed. Words were used to confess wrongs… things that we wish we could have back to do over again, but can’t.  But then, sweet life – giving words were issued to wash clean those areas where the enemy had once again infiltrated our spirit and stained the spiritual garment in which we had been “clothed with Christ.”

 

Something in my body and spirit becomes aligned when I kneel for prayer and confession rather than sitting or standing. Kneelers invite that posture before God. It’s really something to behold, when you look out and see hundreds of people kneeling in a posture of humility, even in our Madison Avenue 21^st century world of suits and skirts and jeans and sweatshirts. No matter what your stature in the world, all are the same before Christ.  Hmmm.  If only….

 

I remember the young woman who could not kneel on her left leg – a sports injury?  She sat on the aisle so that when it was time, she could kneel on her right leg with her left leg extended out into the aisle.  No excuses I guess.  This was important to her.

 

I faded into one of the human rivers that streamed out of all eight doors in all directions back into the world, feeling full and fed with the Word and the Word-made-flesh that was given up in death—even for my sake.  Amazing… that the God of the ever-expanding, 9 – billion – year – old universe would notice me, hear me when I speak, speak into my life when I hurt or am lost, and even die for me in my place.  Really?  

 

It’s still hard to grasp the reality of that Act on the cross. But … now I’m getting ahead of myself. That Act is still ahead, on Good Friday, still another 39 days ahead on this year’s 40 day journey.