Answer the Call

It's hard to think back to those days before cell phones or smart phones. For most of us, there has always been cell phones. And it seems that lately they seem to at often times be more of a distraction than a convenience.

I see people talking on their phones eating at restaurants, at amusement parks, in their cars. Lately it seems like we are on them more than we are off of them.

There are parodies on YouTube that convey just how "present" we really are when we are on the phone. In fact we seem to be neglecting the very people we are with in lieu of possibly missing out on the reason for someone calling us.

Call waiting used to be a feature I liked because you could always get through to someone in an emergency instead of getting a busy signal. But now, even though you are talking to someone, it is disheartening some times when someone puts you on hold to take another call. With the invention of Caller ID, they don't have to "take" the other call to find out who it is because the phone will often times tell them who is calling.

So when did phones take over our lives in such a way that we lose track of what is important?

There are times when you get a phone call now, you look at who is calling and can choose to answer it or not. Trust me there are times when the person who is calling is someone we can't spare an hour with. You know who those people are. The ones you almost dread picking up the phone to talk to. The ones who want more than anything to "tell" you about their life, than really wanting to know what is going on with yours. The ones that like to talk just to hear themselves talk. Do you think they know what they are doing?

We always have that old standby Voicemail as well to take the calls we don't want. We will even go so far as to say we didn't get their message because those are the very same people we don't want to talk to when they do call.

Or we simply want to disconnect with being bound to a device no matter what the reason. Now a days we simply want to be unplugged from always being on.

But an even greater need is how connected are we with God lately?

Do we even make time for God anymore because we are simply so busy?

What about our time with our families?

How much time are we truly investing in them anymore?

I think we need to take a hard look at where we are spending the majority of our time. I'm not saying we need to quit our jobs unless of course, you are becoming a workaholic simply to get ahead. All your time is being spent working harder to get more material things, bigger home, car, second house, vacations, even promotions, but we are leaving our families home alone too much!

We forget the real reason for any of this is supposed to be about balancing our priorities. Setting aside time for God, for church, for our families and keeping our balances in check. Too often we move those boundaries and begin to deplete other areas in our life. We sacrifice our personal time or even our sleep time for more time at the office.

Then we get to our golden years and look back and realize, what was it all for? Regrets set in and we begin to wish we did things differently.

We may lose a member of our family and instantly regret the choices were are making even now. Wishing we could have just one more day with them. In fact Mitch Albom wrote a book about just that called One More Day. I would encourage you to read it if you get the chance.

One of my favorite books on the subject of godly perspective is Andy Andrews book, The Noticer and the Noticer Returns. It provides some great insight on making some changes in our life now, to avoid the regrets that can come later.

But most importantly don't neglect your time with God. It should be the biggest priority we have right now. He gives solid, truthful and timely advice in the Bible that help us to keep our priorities in order. When we do that, we have a better balance in the tings that matter.

Isn't it time you answer God's call in your life today?  He's waiting for you to answer!