You’re driving down the freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic. You have an important job interview in fifteen minutes, and you’re late. All morning you were trying one pill after another trying to wear down the anxiety, but it didn’t work—it just made you drowsy, and now you’re on your third cup of coffee trying to boost yourself back up. You’ve been telling yourself not to be nervous, but you haven’t really been listening. The traffic is not letting up, and finally—in desperation—you say, OK, God, I’ve run out of ideas. I guess I’ll have to try you now.

You pick up your cell phone and dial 1-800-2HEAVEN. You get a phone tree which says: “To reach the Father, please press 1. To leave a message, please press 2.”

You say to yourself: Aw, Father has a lot of problems to deal with, more important than my petty problems. I’ll probably get put on hold, anyway. I guess I’ll just leave a message.

You press 2 and leave your message: “Hi, God, I know you’re really busy, but I’m stuck in traffic here, and I’m really nervous about my interview. If your schedule isn’t too full, and if you’re interested, could you maybe think about helping me out? Thanks. If you get this message you can reach me at 555-5555. Bye.”

As soon as you hang up the phone, you realize that you accidentally gave Him your old number that expired, so you wouldn’t be able to hear back from Him anyway.

Not too effective, is it? All you end up with at the end is hoping that God managed to check his voice mail. Yet many of us actually pray that way and don’t realize there’s any other way. I know I once prayed that way!

There’s another method to prayer: pressing 1 instead of 2. Let’s see what happened to the person with the job interview:

You press 1 and get a live person who immediately says: “Hello, you have reached the Holy Spirit switchboard. Please wait while we patch you through to the Father.” A moment passes, and then you get the Father Himself—who just so happens to have some free time just for you!

“Hello, this is the Father. What can I do for you, my child?”

“Hi, Father, I’m feeling really messed up about this interview, and You know, I’m sorry I took those drugs and drank all that coffee before calling You. It isn’t too late to call You now, is it?”

“Of course not; I’m always available. Remember, you got my personal phone number and VIP status when you became friends with My Son.”

“Yeah, thanks, I kind of forgot about that. Well, I’m calling to ask You to renew my faith and help me to remember that I can dial You any time I want, even during this job interview. Could You send Someone to help me through it?”

“Sure, I’ll transfer you to the Holy Spirit Personal Staff who can assist you from there. Is there anything else you need?”

“I think there is. Could You tell the Holy Spirit to give me some advice on how to pray for the interviewer while I’m there?”

“Yes, I can easily do that. I’ll even tell Him to give you a prayer language that’ll help you pray for the person more easily. Blessings on you, my child.”

The Father patches you through to the Holy Spirit Personal Staff who helps you get through the traffic and gets you through the interview. By the time you’re done praying for the interviewer who has just found out her husband doesn’t love her anymore, you’ve landed the job. At the same time, you discover you’ve landed another job—one the Father gave you: praying for your boss and your co-workers.

By the time you settle down behind your desk days later, and you’ve just heard that the interviewer and her husband got back together, you wonder why you ever drank all that coffee or even thought about only leaving voice mail.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 10:32 am and is filed under Living by the Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.