On A Cell Phone And A Prayer

I feel as though a disclaimer is in order: There are a lot of blog posts out there that can make a person feel inadequate. So let me just say, I’ve been known to yell at my kids, my husband and I lose patience with each other…frequently. I can be fearful—especially when it comes to doing good, hard things. There are currently cobwebs in almost every corner of my house and I haven’t mopped the kitchen floor for weeks. I’m not talking about a perfect life here. This is a normal life that, occasionally, God illumines in ways I feel compelled to share. That’s all.

So, flashback to a few weeks ago. I’m sitting in the midst of our women’s Bible study. The subject is prayer. We talk about Psalm 55:17: Evening, and morning, and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud; and He shall hear my voice.(KJV)

“So, when do you pray?” the study leader asks.

Morning and night, yes. But the middle of my day? “Well, no,” I blithely spout. “But God and I are talking all day. I sort of feel like it’s a running conversation.”

The women nod and smile. We continue on. But I wonder how a middle of the day prayer time could work. One of the women says she sets her smart phone alarm to remind her. I’m often not at home that time of day. I’m often with others. But I can’t shake the idea.

A week later, I set the alarm. I tell it to repeat daily—so the title of the alarm comes up as “PRAY, every day.”

The next day, the alarm shimmers at the appointed time and, guess what? That running conversation I supposedly have with God all day? Not so much. That first day the alarm rings, and most of the days after, God is the furthest thing from my frantically busy, overtaxed mind. I’m embarrassed, chagrined. But I also feel like I've been given a gift—it is so nearly impossible for us to see ourselves clearly. Here, joy! A rare moment of self-clarity.

The next day, the alarm rings while I’m at work. A colleague is sitting in my office. “What’s that?” she asks. Then, “Oh, an alarm.” I watch her running the options through her head—medication, meeting, pay a bill?

Before I slide the alarm off, I turn my phone around. I show her the one word in the middle of my screen, PRAY. Her eyes widen, then she smiles. We’d been discussing a recurring challenge that seemed to elude solution. “Why don’t we pray about it?” She takes me up on the offer. I close the office door—and we manage about thirty seconds of prayer before someone knocks. I hastily finish up and deal with the person at the door. After the knocker leaves, my colleague gets up. Before she goes, she says, “Thank you. I didn’t realize how much I needed that prayer, but I did.”

As the days go by, I have the chance to pray with others. They are mostly quick prayers, snatched from the hectic whirl of busy days. But “thank you,” I hear, over and over.

The alarm goes off and I get to pray with my sons. It rings and I pray with my friends. It rings and I pray silently for the burdened-looking strangers standing around me at the post office, the grocery store. It rings while I’m driving…and every time, even though I’m the one who set the alarm, it’s like God calling. If I’m alone, I can’t help but smile and say, “Hello.” I feel so full of joy and gratitude that He’s there.

God gives us these gifts. We think they were our ideas, when they were His all along—sometimes, we just choose to stop and listen.