Same Voice - Different Number

I called my friend Earl last week. For the past few years when I’ve called him I’ve used my business cell phone; this time I used my personal cell phone. When I call Earl or when Earl calls me we don’t say, “Hi this is Bob” or “Hi this is Earl” because we know each other’s voice.

Let me admit that I don’t know everyone’s voice who calls me who thinks I know their voice. Sometimes I’ve got to play along until I figure it out, sometimes I have to ask. When I call people I usually tell them who it is even if I think they’ll know - might as well make things as easy as possible on us both.

Jesus says in John Chapter Ten that His sheep know His voice - there have been many times I’ve had to trust Him on that - for while I have no doubt that He knows my voice I am pretty sure that there are times I’ve missed His. So I say, “Jesus, please help me to know Your voice,” because by now I know that without His help it ain’t going to happen with me. With Jesus and me it’s kind of like my dog Lily and me. I’ll call her and call her and walk around the house looking for her and finally I’ll see her beneath some bushes that I’ve walked by two or three times - she heard me but she didn’t hear me, or she heard me but ignored me. I’m afraid I’m like that with Jesus...the good news is that He keeps calling me.

One day a few years ago our home phone rang and I answered it to hear a child’s voice saying, “Pastor Bob, our Girl Scout group is selling cookies, do you want some?” Naturally I said “Yes” and made a commitment for some boxes. When I got off the phone I said to Vickie, “If anyone asks us to buy cookies at church let’s go ahead and buy them; I’m not sure who I just committed to because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by asking who was calling.” Sometimes you just don’t recognize the voice.

As I was saying, I called my friend Earl.

“Hi” I said.

“Hi” he replied.

“How’re you doing?”

“Who is this?” he asked.

“You don’t know who this is?”

“No...who is this?”

“It’s Bob.”

“Oh, I didn’t recognize the number.”

Earl knows my voice but when he saw a number he didn’t recognize he didn’t know my voice because what he was thinking overshadowed what he was hearing.  

Sometimes our eyes deceive us.

I wonder how many times Jesus has called me and I’ve not heard Him because He’s called on a number I didn’t recognize? How many times has He appeared to me in ways that I wasn’t anticipating and I didn’t see Him or hear Him?

How many times have I not “seen” others when they’ve been right in front of me because they looked differently or spoke differently or acted differently from what is within my comfort zone?

When we assume God is going to communicate to us in certain ways, when we in effect say, “God, here is a phone to use when you call me, please only use this phone and its number when you call,” we just might miss Him.