No Voicemail in Heaven

“In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.” (Ps 86:7 AV)

I love the certainty of the psalmist here.  There is no doubt in his voice at all.  If he prays, he knows God will answer.  He doesn’t even mention being heard.  Being heard is taken for granted because if He answers, then He heard.  I just cannot get past the absolute certainty in the expression above.  God will not only hear.  He will answer.  Which, by the way, is absolutely true.  God always answers.  His answer is a yes, no, or maybe.  But there is always an answer.  Perhaps one of the reasons we do not seek the face of God is we do not want a certain answer.  If we want a yes and we think it is going to be no, then maybe we will not call upon God.  If we want a no, and there is a possibility the answer might be yes, then we may not call upon God.  Or, if we want a yes or no, and the LORD gives us a maybe, we may not think calling on God is worth the effort. One truth is certain.  We call on God because we are certain of an answer even if it is not the answer we were looking for.

I am old enough to remember when phone numbers did not come with answering machines or voice mail.  Back in the day, we had a party line.  This meant several houses shared a phone number and anyone on that party line could pick up the phone and listen in.  Then we got our phone number.  The phones themselves were rotary.  There was a dial with ten holes in it and you put your finger in the hole where the number appeared.   You turned the rotary dial clockwise to a home position and it would return to its original spot.  The distance your finger traveled would tell the phone what number you just dialed.  This was all before the push-button phones.  There were no machines to automatically answer the phone for you.  If the phone rang, it would continue to do so until someone answered or the caller gave up and hung up.  You assumed when you called, there would be an answer.  Today, one almost always assumes a call will go to voicemail.  Or at least half the time one calls.  Ignoring calls becomes all too convenient.  Yet this is not so with God.

Because we are so used to being forwarded to voicemail, we take this experience and apply it to the LORD.  We call on the LORD and we do not expect He might return the call and answer.  Doing so is not praying if faith.  Something James tells us is required to experience answered prayer.  With all that in mind, we can see why the writer is so certain that God was going to answer if he did the calling.  Of course, God will.  We have to see the eventuality of an answer as a guarantee.  If we can see an answer as a guarantee, then we will look for that answer.  God does not have an answering service.  He has no answering machine.  God does not have a voicemail.  God hears every word and He does answer.  His answer will be a yes, no, or maybe.  But there will be an answer.