Do you recognize any of these text message shorthand initials?
WIM Woe is me
TSNF That’s so not fair
UV Unpleasant visual
SOHF Sense of humor failure
The other day I was feeling pretty sad and anxious about a situation that two people I love are experiencing. I was waiting on a text from them. I was also praying about their lives randomly, accounts for a good portion of my thoughts. I considered how amazing it would be if we could just “text” God when we needed to.
I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I did it. I texted God. I went to “create a new contact” on my phone and added Him to my contact list. I thought, “Hmmm, which of His names to choose? “ So I chose “Sovereign” for His first name and “God for His second. Next I had to fill in “Company.” I typed it in with “Heaven and Earth.” After all, that is where He works. When it came to listing His number and the rest of the blanks, I kind of lost steam. I was too excited to do the actual text to mess around. But I did take my phone outside and I took a picture of my favorite pot of flowers for a contact card picture of Him. Beautiful.
Now for the text. Texts are meant to be short (so my kids tell me) but I don’t really know the shorthand lingo. So I just typed” HELP. Please. You’ll know exactly what to do.” Then I pressed “send.” I knew it wasn’t going out to an actual phone, but I smiled inside. I felt better. I thought, “I should do this more often and of course never tell anyone.”
Guess what happened. Yep. A notification signal. I had an incoming text. WOW. He is fast. Seriously, I knew that God had not texted me back. Not literally. But then, bigger things have happened. The parting of the Red Sea, the birth of my children, etc….It did get me to thinking. What might God say to me if He really did text me back? A portion of scripture? Yeah. That would be it. He would say something Biblical since those are His words to begin with…Or maybe He would tell me 2BZ4UQT (too busy for you cutie.)
I looked at the phone to see who had texted me. It was from AT&T and it said “ERROR. Invalid number.”
That didn’t surprise me but it was strangely profound to me. That is what we believe sometimes. We believe that God is not a valid source of help in times of trouble. We believe it brings more relief to text a friend or handle it ourselves, or just ignore the problem. Or as the lingo goes HBASTD (hitting bottom and starting to dig)
I haven’t sent any more texts to God since then. However, as I wrote this I looked at His current picture and His name on my contact card. I’m leaving Him in my phone. Why? Well, He is my BFF.
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