When I Called, You Answered

Some of us have that friend about whom we are constantly discovering new things. Maybe we’ve known this person for ten or even twenty years, and one day at lunch we’ll find out they’re a direct descendant of a dead president or they once met a major celebrity.

“You never asked,” they’ll say with a shrug.

As annoying as this can be, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? We never asked. There is something strangely sacred about the act of asking for something. It requires humility. It requires grace. It requires us to be awake, to be aware, to be vulnerable.

Too often we fall into a pattern of entitlement, even when it comes to information. We go through life thinking that a great cosmic conveyor belt of what we want is going to roll on past us, and we’ll barely even have to extend our arms. We read our Bible and we hear all these amazing promises from the Father who loves us, and we get sort of complacent. He’s got this, we think, and we shut our eyes to take a snooze on the road trip of life, confident that someone else is going to look out for stop signs and wrong turns.

It’s true: God’s got this. He is going to take care of us. But He wants us to be in relationship with Him. He wants us to be an active, receptive participant in our own salvation. See his patience with Abraham’s entreaties on behalf of the righteous of Sodom: He wants to answer, not simply to tell.

He wants us to stay awake for the drive.

— Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS