For years, sales calls over landline phone systems were a nuisance, at best. We had no way to see who was calling, and invariably, the calls came through at just the wrong times. We were sitting down to supper or on the way out the door to church. Perhaps we were changing the baby’s diaper when the phone started to ring. Someone needed us, and it might be Grandma from the Old Country, Publisher’s Clearing House with a million dollar prize, or even an old friend who had searched us out.
We could not afford to let that magical ring go unanswered.
Yet, when that voice came over the line asking if this was the man or woman of the house, disappointment and frustration overwhelmed us. It was a telemarketer with a sales call, interrupting us for no good reason except to sell us something.
Then came answering machines, Caller ID, and a whole range of new options with our mobile devices. We could choose to ignore those pesky telemarketers. Have a new cell phone? Telemarketers didn’t call on those, so people we really wanted to talk to got our cell number.
And the telemarketers eventually appeared there, on our cell lines, a continuing and very persistent pain in the neck. They could now find us wherever we were.
In the spiritual world, God is our telemarketer, our pain in the neck. And we can trust him to be a pain in the neck for the sake of our children and our children’s children.
He wants to sell us life everlasting; his salvation; spiritual renewal through his Son, the Christ who died upon the cross.
Jeremiah 1:9 tells us the third time God came to the prophet with the same message, refusing to let Jeremiah hang up on him.
He will plead with us, no matter how far we’ve gone or where we are. He will even get on our nerves, interrupting important events, and forcing us to listen to him. If we try to run from him, he will chase us down on our cell phones, pleading with us to return to him.
And he will also find our children and our children’s children, calling on them to return to him.
He will be our pain in the neck, the telemarketer calling at the most inopportune times, with the question, “Is this the man or the woman of the house?” He even goes so far as to offer his services for free.
If we ignore his call or hang up at hearing his voice, that won’t stop him. He will continue to plead for us to return to him.
We can expect his calls. He has promised us so. He doesn’t mind being a pain in the neck, if it will bring us back to him.
We cannot drift so far from God that he cannot find us, in order that he might call us back to him.
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