On my cell and now my home phone, I have Caller ID. Most of the time when I get a call that I can not identify (specifically as someone I know or generally as a local number that might be a member), I do not answer it. I like to know who is calling before I answer. I like to know exactly who I am talking to when I put my ear to the phone’s speaker.
It is sort of the same way with God. There are lots of ways God could speak to us. He could speak through a small still voice. He could speak through things that seem to be too perfect to be coincidences. He could use our feelings to guide us in the way that He would have us go. He could speak in all sorts of ways.
When I got a Call to serve another church as pastor and had to make a decision, someone suggested that God was trying to say something to me when I received a “to-go†container at a eating place even without asking. Others told me that God would just give me peace about one decision or another. Some I am sure would have expected on such a Kingdom-related decision I might get a little whisper from God.
But I have to admit, I do not answer “Unknown Caller†calls, even from God. I do not assume that just because God could be speaking to me that He is speaking to me. Only when I know it is Him do I listen. And how do I know? Well the only Caller ID I trust when it comes to God is when it says 1-800-Word-and-Sacraments. Then I know it will be Him for sure and that I should listen. Only in the Scriptures and the Sacraments do I have God’s promise to speak.
All of other numbers could be prank calls made by the evil one, seeking to deceive me rather than lead me. All of those other calls could actually be me calling myself to tell me what I want to hear. All of those others calls could be anything.
I would have loved a definitive answer from above. But I did not get one. Or if I did, I guess I did not answer that call. I only could base that decision on what I knew from the Word. And so I did make my decision that way. I do not answer calls from unknown callers.
