please hang up and dial again

The city seems so far now,

What was once a train ride away

Is now separated from me

By an angry conversation and words

Spoken that should have been

Silenced before leaving my lips.

I called your flat, you didn't answer.

I listened to the machine, just to

Hear your voice... please pick up.

I sat with the receiver in my hand,

Staring out the window, looking 

For an answer on the leafless trees.

I wrote that poem last December, and didn't know where it came from.  I hadn't experienced a situation like that before, and I assumed I was channeling someone else's life experiences... you know, creating a more dramatic Abby Seeland.  I hadn't thought about this poem for awhile, until this morning at church.

If the poem applies to me, it's not a guy giving me a cold shoulder, it's God.

My pastor Jay Thomas preached this morning about Habakkuk... not the usual go-to book of the Bible.  In the first chapter Habakkuk is crying out to the Lord to save the righteous from violence.  He appeals to God's purity and asks how He can stand idly by when evil reigns.

The Lord does answer Habakkuk, and tells him that faith waits, and the key verse of this little book is in chapter 2, verse 4: "The righteous shall live by faith."

When Jay read this verse I immediately thought of Abraham, who was justified by his faith in God's promise, a promise that he would have a son... a promise that God took 12 years to fulfill.

12 years?  Why?  That is more than half my lifetime.  I am used to quick, easy answers.  I am Generation Wikipedia, information at my fingertips.  And I have found that God has not changed with the technology, He still works in His perfect timing... even though I have found a faster internet connection.

I often write the word "patience" on my thumb or the back of my hand.  I seem to be perpetually waiting for God to answer me, and more often forgetting that He has.

Jay said it's okay to ask the Lord questions, but it's not okay to question the Lord's character or power... He is good, and He cannot transgress His nature.  

Sometimes, most times, God answers my questions and prayers in ways I don't expect and often don't immediately appreciate.  And now I pose a question to myself... "What do you expect?"  If  the Lord of the Universe deems it necessary to step into my world and change something, I am not going to understand it by looking at it through sin-colored glasses.  I am evil, and I need His help to understand His ways, His timing.

I want to be patient.  I want to ask the Lord for answers, and immediately see the beauty of His goodness.  I know that He has helped me before, and I trust He will do it again.  As I look back over the years, and consider the works of His fingers, I know that they have all been wonderful and good.

Sometimes life hands you a silent receiver... but that doesn't mean that God won't pick up soon.

Patience.