The Voicemail

Recently, the Lord brought to my attention an aspect of prayer that I haven’t considered.

Twice in the last week or two, I found myself leaving voicemails to people at the college. At the end of those messages, I caught myself almost saying, “In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.” At first, I found this to be funny and almost encouraging that, in my default reactions, when I am tired and distracted, these are the words that my calls nearly end with.

But on considering it further and why this happened more than once, I have found that the Lord may be teaching me something deeper. He forced me to consider a challenging question: How many of us treat our prayers like voicemails? How often do I pray in this way?

I confess, not all of my prayers seem like a conversation with the Lord. While I know that he hears and listens to us in and out of the prayers, this led me to consider how often do I pray like messages to be dropped off and not like He’s on the other end of the line with the call already picked up, and I just need to turn the volume up.

It can get so easy to turn down the volume when there may be things we don’t want to hear. It can be so easy to not hear because of outside distractions. But even if the words may sting, they are given to us in perfect love for purposes beyond our present knowledge.

How about we take our prayers and go beyond giving the Lord our thanks, admiration, requests, garbage, and all other things to take the next step in listening.

God does not want to only receive our messages. He wants to listen to us, and He wants us to listen in return. The next time we approach prayer, let’s ask ourselves: Are we going to engage in a conversation with the Lord, or are we just going to leave another voicemail?