Like you, I have too many things to do. The urge to triple my available time tantalizes me at every occasion. Phone designers know this. It surprises me how the instrument designed for phoning another person is now also capable of a wide variety of activities. I remember my own early attempts at phone multitasking. If I was able to stretch the curly cord attached to the base of a phone just far enough so that I could wipe the kitchen counter, I was getting ahead on my daily chores. In those “olden” days the ability to clean up a nearby mess while listening on the phone to copious complaints from a prolific talker made the time spent a little less dismal. Now there are even more possibilities to be productive with a phone.

This weekend while helping our oldest daughter prepare for her upcoming wedding, we were able to use her phone to locate the party supply warehouse, the florist, a bakery, and caterer. Her phone was not just a phone, but also a phone directory. Then while we drove, her phone served as our map. Later it made a pleasant sound to remind her to take her medicine. It amused a younger sister by playing games and brought sweet whispers and smiles when the bride-to-be’s fiancée called. With it, she took pictures at her brother’s graduation and checked emails as I drove her back to her apartment.

When this phone, “genius-instrumentous-wondrous,” occasionally exhibited spells of silence and poor performance, we were disgruntled. Didn’t the manufacturers know how important our relationship was to this phone? For goodness sakes, we were spiraling around northeast Houston on a toll road at top speed in territory we’d never seen! Our task completion was dependent on the once illuminated, but now black screen of my daughter’s phone. Map? What map? Signs? What signs? We were using the phone, obeying the voice, turning as directed, with hardly a glance at the rapidly changing environment around us. Being the driver, I was mainly focused on the next lane-changing-city-smuck who bullied into my “safe space—six car lengths long” and caused my countrified heart to make bunny hops in my chest!

Our dependence and cell phone glitch is a perfect example of how my relationship to God is affected by sin. If prayer is my cell phone to talk to God, then unconfessed sin is the dead zone, dropped call, or satellite disconnect cutting apart our bond.

In Psalm 66, verse 18, Shepherd King David mentions this problem of God’s ability to hear us.

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”

Proverbs 15:29, & 28:9, as well as Isaiah 1:15, John 9:31 & James 4:3 also speak of this issue.

Biblical fact; God cannot hear us when we lack repentance for our sin.

Problem; how can we expect to move through our day with His efficiency?

Fortunately David was able to follow verse 18 with:

“But certainly God has heard me; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer nor removed His mercy and lovingkindness from being with me.”

To know that God hears me is so comforting. However, I must clarify this statement. God’s hearing me doesn’t mean He always does what I ask. (I am in doubt of the Biblical accuracy of the “name it, claim it” group.) The Bible teaches that we are not as wise as God is, so even some “good” things we might ask for may not be part of His best design for us. It is enough for me to understand that He hears me (IF I have kept sin from harboring in my heart) and knows what is best for me. This is how I stay connected to God. Like the phone, my connection to God gives me many aps, too. Things like life direction, wisdom, world connectivity, reminders, and entertainment. (Yes, God entertains. Been to the zoo lately?) With God connected to me, I can be the ultimate tasker—His, tasks of course.

Would you be interested in switching to His network?