I’ve always been a phone guy… I remember when touch tone took the country by storm and we no longer had to use rotary phones to connect to one another. We could just push a sequence of buttons and that invention revolutionized the phone as a business tool. I remember Dad telling me that it was the least expensive way to stay in touch with clients, vendors and people in general. I never forgot his assessment about this most efficient way of staying in touch! I daresay that I loved it!
When I was a youngster, our home phone number was BEverly8-2409. I still remember it. Janet’s phone was PRescott9-5090. You didn’t have to dial the area code unless you were calling another area. Eventually, the alpha characters were replaced by numbers and the world seemed to change. When I was in 8th grade or so, Dad and Mom thought I used the phone too much and allowed me to get my own line. As I look back on that, I find it difficult to believe that they actually let me have a phone in my bedroom. I remember the day it was put in by the phone guy – and I got BE8-2426. In those days, each call was one unit, and I had about 30 units a month – eventually going up to 60. As far as I know, I was the first of my friends to have my own phone.
When Janet and I were married, we moved to the western suburbs and got number 964-3417. And when we moved up north to Inverness, I think we had 248-4849. I’ve just always had a thing for phone numbers. When we moved to Carmel, IN, we secured 844-7811 and when the kids got older we added 844-7817, That was 42 years ago and we kept those numbers through everything – until last week. After much angst and consternation, we dropped the landlines from AT&T. It was like cutting my arm off…
I know that sounds crazy but I’ll be 72 years old this month and have never been without a landline. Yes, I have a cell phone – and I have had the same number since 1982. It is one of the longest standing cell numbers in the U.S. To say I am loyal to AT&T is an understatement.
I have tried to understand why it bothered me so much to cancel our service. Yes, it was $140 a month to keep a landline number and every time we had severe rain, the line would go dead. We were offered a chance to keep our number and go to a digital platform but that option didn’t have some of the features, such as distinctive ring, that I wanted. Spectrum and other providers jockeyed for our business and promised to port our old number to their latest and greatest network. I could have even have ordered another cell phone and kept our number.
But there was something just too complicated about the whole thing. Suddenly, it became apparent that I was trying to hang on to something that had outlived its usefulness in our lives. On top of all that, we had hundreds of spam calls every day. It got to the point that we forwarded the landline to my cell phone. In two weeks, we did not get one single legitimate call to our home number. It was time to pull the plug, literally.
I tried to convince myself that it was irresponsible to get rid of our beloved phone number. What if someone was sick or had an emergency and needed to call out? But as I thought more about it, and Janet confirmed, who do you know who doesn’t carry a cell phone? It was time to move on and literally cut the cord. I kind of felt naked thinking about it…
In fact, it was almost like an addiction. Something to face and conquer. So… here I sit tonight reflecting on what calls I might miss or what things I am not considering. But the worst is over – we cancelled the landline last Friday. Even the kids were a little nostalgic – saying it was the first number that they remember memorizing. I’m here to tell you that I was STRONG… no going back… no reconsideration. RIP 317-844-7811! Time to enter, albeit reluctantly, the 21st century.
For a guy who’s been a phone guy his whole life, there is a certain freedom in cutting the literal cord. But I’m kind of surprised to hear myself even saying those words. I’ve now gone three days without the phone. And I think about all the places we will have to notify to delete that number from our account. And the passwords that are linked to that phone number… but we will figure it out… However, I didn’t even feel this bad when we gave up our office numbers after I graduated from seminary.
Thank God we don’t need a phone line to talk to our Savior… No need to dial a phone, leave a message or get a busy signal. God is always there – every day, and night, forever. And we have an open channel to converse with Him whenever we wish. Admittedly, I do have comfort knowing that.
Our verse for tonight highlights the constant presence of God in our lives. The prophet Isaiah tells us, in Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Those should be words of comfort for every believer everywhere.
My encouragement this evening is that God wants us to keep the most important connection in our lives – and we don’t need a phone to do it. My prayer is that we will all remember that we have a direct pipeline, through prayer, to the Creator of everything, and that’s nothing to dismiss or take lightly. It’s not even a landline, it’s a heavenly line… each of us already has one of those – and they are free… Jesus already paid the price. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…