Call Waiting 

Today we’re covering the topic of call waiting. As a child, I lived in a large household. Im probably about to show my age but, I need to make this point. When I grew up we had a hose phone. Yes, one phone for everyone to share! Sounds insane but it’s true. 

If you were on the phone and another call came in you would hear a beep in your ear until you switched over to see who was calling. And when you live in a large household if you didn’t pick up the other line, it would cause a huge problem!  

So when you’re in deep conversation with your friends you better stop whatever you were saying and see what the other caller wanted. Usually, it was just a gossip fest incoming but sometimes it was really important. It could be a business call for my grandma or one of my aunts calling to talk to my mom. You never knew what you were missing if you didn’t pick up the call that was waiting and you didn’t know the consequences of missing the call until after the fact. 

I remember early in my Christian walk, I wasn’t attending church and God kept telling me to go and I didn’t listen. Flash forward to a few weeks later my atheist non-binary friend asked if I attended church and said she would like to go. I didn’t want to lie so I said no, but we could go together if she wanted. But because I wasn’t already in attendance she wasn’t interested and that was it. I missed my chance. 

God allowed me to see how my disobedience affected others. It was at that point that I decided I would walk with Christ seriously. If that’s what God allowed me to see, I had to wonder what I was missing. What hidden opportunities did I miss because of my disobedience?

I had to repent, it plagued me to know that God could have used me and I didn’t allow him to. This reminds me of Jonah and the Whale, its bible story that’s told from childhood whether you’re Christian or not. What we sometimes fail to realize is that according to Jonah 4:11 his disobedience in what God called him to affected about 120,000 people. Eventually, Jonah listened to God and delivered a prophetic word to Nineveh and the entire city repented and turned to God. But the story reveals that God will have his way even in our disobedience and Jonah’s obedience was tied to something so much bigger than him. 

Jonah showed us how God works in our disobedience but Jesus shows us the full impact of being obedient in our call. At the end of Jesus’s ministry, he knew it was time to go to the cross. Jesus made his way with his disciples to the garden of Gethsemane. It was there that Jesus pleaded with God not to send him to the cross. Jesus did not want to endure the pain that was set before him. But even though Jesus made it very clear to us that in his humanity he didn’t want to go to the cross, he was obedient to his call and went to the cross for us. Jesus prayed:

“Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”  

Mark 14:36

Jesus was obedient even when he didn’t want to be. It is through his obedience that we get to benefit. We are grafted into his family, we are separated from our sins, and we are made holy and righteous by the grace offered to us through our faith in Christ.

The obedience that Jesus shows in going to the cross is what allows our eternity to change and for darkness to be pushed out of the earth. 

Besides accepting salvation, being obedient to Jesus’s call on your life is the most important thing you will ever do. There is a call on your life whether you want it or not. You can choose not to step into your calling, or you can choose to ignore God, but God has assigned you with purpose before your earthly body was created. Your call is waiting!

Jesus showed us that what God is asking of us is bigger than we can imagine. Our work is supposed to ripple through time. You were created to walk in the full power of Christ, you were created to trample on demons. You were created to help rip people out of the pit of hell. You are sent here not just to act in a moment of obedience but you are called to to sway generations.

Jesus did the hard part for us, he beat death, hell, and the grave. Then he gave us the power to overcome every obstacle spiritual or physical that comes against us. Jesus showed us what it looks like to respond in obedience when God anoints us to do a thing.

Now it’s your turn, your call is waiting!