God On The Line

I was still a bit groggy when I answered the phone.
I couldn’t quite read the name that was shown.
“Hello” I stammered in my gravely voice.
“Wake up” I heard, “Prepare to rejoice!”

“What?  Who is this?” I started to say,
already thinking this must go away.
“Can you hold for God?” came over the line.
I paused just to think, then said, “Okay, fine.”

I knew it was some kind of marketing call,
convinced that I finally had now heard them all.
As I sat there on hold, the question I had,
if I hang up on God, would that not be bad?

“Yeah, right” I reasoned, “God’s calling me?”
So, I looked on my phone for the caller ID.
As if someone somehow inserted a name,
“God” was there scrolling my screen like a game.

As I put the receiver back up to my ear,
if just for a second, I trembled in fear.
The music had stopped for a moment or two,
enough that I spoke the words, “God, is that you?”

I admit to the fact that despite unbelief,
when the dial tone began, I felt some relief.
All sorts of questions then raced through my mind.
It had to be some sort of trick of some kind.

If my phone dropped the call, I hope He’ll call back,
He’d surely not leave me for service I lack.
If it truly were God, I thought, what would He say?
It might be, “I'm calling, since you rarely pray.”

I’d gotten away from that daily routine,
God became something I squeezed in between.
It seemed so ironic, with so much at stake,
the difference that one simple phone call could make.