Cold caller

Earlier today on Bellshill Salvation Army Band’s Facebook page I shared the devotions I shared at band practice last night. I’d like to share those devotions with you tonight.

Definition of a cold caller – someone who makes an unsolicited visit or phone call to someone, in an attempt to sell them goods or services. 

I’m sure we could all recount stories of how cold callers have tried to convince us we should buy whatever goods or services they are trying to sell. We’ve probably all come up with our own way of responding to, or dealing with them.

I recently overheard a conversation where one woman was recounting how another woman she knew dealt with cold callers:

The woman in question was a Christian and a regular attender at a local church. She had got fed up with the number of cold callers she was getting, and how they asked lots of questions of her, but never really gave any information about themselves. So she decided to change her tact – instead of not answering her phone when she didn’t recognise the caller’s phone number, or letting the caller explain what they wanted her to sell her, she decided to simply ask the caller one question. What do you think that question was?

Here’s the question she asked – ‘Do you love Jesus?’

She soon found that asking that one question resulted in every single cold caller immediately ending the call! She continued to use this tact to bring a swift end to anyone who dared to cold call her, and was please to share this ‘trick’ with her fellow church goers.

The two women who were laughed that at this story, and agreed it sounded like a good way to quickly get rid of cold callers. 

This story didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger exactly what made me uneasy, until a few days later.

We’re always to eager to get rid of a cold caller so we can get on with our busy day-to-day lives, rushing from one thing to another. It got me thinking about my relationship with God. I am guilty of not wanting to listen to God sometimes when he’s trying to speak to me.

On Sunday morning Major Miriam asked us to look through the holiness section of our songbook and choose one song or verse as our prayer for this week. I found it difficult to pick just one verse as there’s a few songs in that section of the songbook that I often turn to as they have special meaning to me. One such song is ‘O Jesus I have promised’ – the third verse of that song came to mind as I was gathering my thoughts for tonight.

O let me hear Thee speaking 
in accents clear and still, 
above the storms of passion, 
the murmurs of self-will; 
O speak to reassure me, 
to hasten or control! 
O speak, and make me listen, 
Thou Guardian of my soul!

I can be guilty of sometimes treating God like a ‘cold caller’ when he wants to speak to me – I’ll give him all sorts of excuses about being too busy, or it not being a good time for me – all just to try and prematurely end the ‘cold call’ from God. How about you? Are you always willing to take that ‘cold call’ from God? Or do you make excuses in an attempt to end the call with God as quickly as you can?

Next time God tries to ‘cold call’ me, I will try and remind me the following verse from Revelation – I encourage you to do the same.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Revelation 3:20 (NIV)