If I didn’t pay, I couldn’t talk. I remember the days of restricted use.
As my wife and I sat on the front porch of the one-hundred-year-old home we rented, we often heard it ring. A pay phone situated next to an old country store across the road. Each night around the same time, the ringing began. No one ever showed up to answer, and by the time we would have gotten up from our seats, crossed the road, and walked to the phone, it would undoubtedly have stopped ringing before we reached the receiver.
Listening to the phone, however, took us back to a time when pay phones were everywhere. If I was away from home and needed to make a call, I either stopped by someone’s house or a business—or found a pay phone. But pay phones needed . . . pay—not only to start the conversation but also to continue it. Operators interrupted conversations with, “Please deposit _____ cents if you wish to continue your call.” If I didn’t, she ended the conversation. Money restricted use, unless I made a collect call and the person on the other end agreed to pay the charges.
God once restricted access to himself as well. He appointed priests to intercede for the people. They made the sacrifices, approached God’s throne, and heard the people’s confessions. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place once a year, where he made a sacrifice for himself and then the people before confessing a year’s worth of sins.
But after Jesus died on the cross, things changed. The curtain that kept people out of the Holy of Holies was torn in two, symbolizing unrestricted access to God for all who chose to approach him through confession and repentance.
I’m glad the old way of doing things is gone—approaching God and making calls. A few hours without my smartphone and I experience nomophobia. We should feel the same about interaction with God.
God is continually with us by the presence of his Spirit, and we need recurrent communion with him—and can have it. Talking with him doesn’t cost a dime, nor does he establish a time limit. We can come as often as we want and with as much stuff as we need to unload.
What’s more, God wants us to come. After all, he’s the One who cleared up the old restricted-use policy. He wants us to share the details of our lives and ask for his guidance. He wants to share in our joys and our sorrows.
Don’t let anything keep you from enjoying your unrestricted access to God.
Father, my praises rise to you for opening the way for me to come to you.
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