When God Calls, Send Your Friends to Voicemail

Phone calls were created to be private conversations — little secrets carried through a wire. If they were meant to be announced to everyone, they would have been designed on speaker by default. The whole purpose of a phone is to hold the kind of intimate conversations we’d normally have face-to-face, only across a distance. That distance could be anywhere from five houses down to your best friend’s home, or even 5,000 miles away. Talking to God is like making a call to heaven.

That’s the technological parallel of prayer. God designed and granted His children special, intimate access to Him — a way to communicate directly, with no one having to intercede for us to make the call happen (although others can join). When we pray, we bring Him our most personal questions and requests in private: asking for wisdom, seeking clarity, confessing our fears, or longing to know His will. And if you listen, He really does speak. Many times in my life, God has spoken to me with such clarity and repetition that I’d be a sinful skeptic to doubt it. One of the most important things for us to discover is our calling and purpose on earth. If heaven had a help desk, I’m sure that would be the number-one inquiry: “What is my purpose?” “Is this Your calling for me?” I’ve asked Him these questions so many times, but I should have stopped long ago, because clarity is no longer needed — only faith. He has confirmed my purpose through the gifts He’s placed in me, the encouragement of others, divine open doors, and the quiet assurance that comes only from our intimate conversations.

It’s a lot like a long-distance lover’s promise. They may tell you, “One day we’ll be together, build a home, and live happily ever after.” A year may pass and you still haven’t been able to sit knee-to-knee with them tangibly, but because you know their heart, you keep believing. To the outside world, though, that promise may look fragile. Friends and family might question it: “Where’s the proof?” “If it was real, wouldn’t it have happened by now?” “How do you know they’ll come through?”

That is what waiting on God’s promises feels like. They’re born in the quiet of your 2 a.m. conversations with Him — promises only you and God know about, whispered in the secret place. That’s why I call myself out for getting so upset when someone questions my life choices or the promise I’m believing in.

The other day a friend called me and at one point asked, “Not to be mean, but really, what do you want to do with your life? You’re turning 26 in November and plan to move. What are you trying to do?” Her question sent that familiar sting of embarrassment through my veins. I shyly explained, “I don’t know where in God’s timeline I am at the moment, so I’m not sure where I’ll end up. But I know I’m supposed to use my gifts of music and writing to help people. It’s unconventional in a corporate sense, but it’s intentional by God. I’m just going to pursue writing.” She lovingly recommended I go back to school to get a degree because she thinks it would help me pay the bills. Many people have told me the same — go back to school and get a degree so you can at least get a decent-paying writing job to survive, and a little bit of paper-printed respect on your name.

For some reason, my heart aches and my head spins a little every time this conversation comes up. I’m not sure why it gets to me so badly when I know that the logic of God defies the logic of man. Of course no one will take me seriously when I bring up the supernatural instructions I’ve been given — because they weren’t in the room when I received them. None of my friends or family can pick up on the whispers of God when He’s whispering in my ear alone, revealing steps and signs exclusively to me, since it’s our private talk. He doesn’t have to ask them for permission or let them in on the plan. These are my personal conversations with God — the source of my bold conclusions and commitments.

Yet it still prompts me to sit in my bathroom and cry on the floor once in a while. Waiting on God in a room full of skeptics is difficult enough, but it’s truly unbearable when you have to fight your own belief. It’s after these conversations that I’ll question God — sometimes even accuse Him of lying or setting me up to fail. I accuse myself of being delusional, tell myself how stupid I am, how much of a loser I am. It just spirals and spirals… and these existential bathroom breakdowns could end if I’d just ignore their calls.

I’m not telling you to cut off your family or block all of your friends. I’m not telling you to shut down and become a secretive shell of yourself when anyone asks about your hopes and dreams. I’m sharing something simple God has taught me in this season of waiting on His promises: when God calls, send your friends to voicemail. You’re answering the wrong call. Leaving God to leave a message will leave you with noise — the confusing, deafening, disheartening noise. There’s a quiet ringing in your spirit, and if you’d just pick it up, you’d know that on the other end of it is a still, small voice waiting to answer for you. It whispers:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” — John 10:27

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” — Isaiah 30:21

Answer the call. Send your friends to voicemail.