Texting With God

?How cool would it be if we could actually just pull out our phone and text God? I always assumed that there would be no such thing as hardship if we can communicate with God on the spot. If every time something bad happened we could just ask for instant advice, wouldn't the bad go away? Jesus could communicate perfectly with God, though, and he still faced incredible hardship. I believe communication means a shoulder to go to and peace through whatever you're stumbling over. It doesn't mean the disappearance of every struggle.

In Mathew 27:51, just after Jesus was crucified, it says that: "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." (NIV). Don't quote me on my biblical knowledge but this is my explanation: In the old testament, people had to enter a special place to communicate with God. They had to go through a curtain where they could then be in His presence. This verse explains that when Jesus was crucified, he tore that barrier that separated his people from him. Do you know why he did that? Simply because he wanted to text you back. He knew voices reached out to him and he cared.

So when you think about it, we actually can sort of text God. We can shoot up a question to the one who always listens. Sometimes it feels like you're texting that one friend that never replies but the truth is that God is always at his phone reading his texts. Jesus made that a possibility. Now, I'd be lying if I said I always remember that this is true. There's always going to be times when you're down so low and you're getting scraped up by the ground and you really don't think God is listening in. You think you got the wrong number. You think your signals too weak. What we think is trouble on God's end of the conversation is actually trouble on our end. It can be hard to understand when God is speaking to you, and everyone deals with that. I believe God speaks to each and every person in a unique way.

Another thing you have to watch for (and in my opinion, this is the hardest part) is who's texting. The devil wants to get in our minds and he wants to lead us astray. The devil never wants to help us. He can make us confused about our source of wisdom. You know when you get a text and you look at your phone but you just see a number; you have no idea who it is. Sometimes we look at a message given to us and can't tell whether it was from demons or Jesus. That's where the genius invention of caller I.D. comes in. John 10: 27 says "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." (NIV). The important advice here about spiritual caller I.D. is that we need to be like sheep that wait for the voice of their shepherd. Sheep that won't listen to a thief or a liar. We need to learn to recognize the voice of God. That's when we are able to set up a contact in God's name. No one's perfect, though, so don't feel like the worst human around if sometimes you do find yourself listening in to the wrong voice. Just stop, take a step back, look at the bible and remember what you know about God and call out to him.

Okay, quick wrap up. Here's what I'm trying to get across. You can communicate with God and in fact, God loves to communicate with you. Jesus made that possible. Through any stumbling block in our path, we can still converse with our all-knowing father. The devil wants to confuse us but Jesus gives us a way to know it's him. If you feel God's number is pretty far down in your recent messages, go and give him a text. He'll jump for joy even higher than when you finally get that text from your crush. Yup, even more than that. ?

Written By: Everitt Born

I'm a Christian writer who enjoys writing short stories, poems and devotionals. I have a website called crEate where I publish this writing; dEvote is a part of that website specifically for devotionals. Check it out!