I recall back to my early days of college, living in the dorm, that my parents had told me that if I needed to call them, to make a “collect call.” Nowadays we don’t think about collect calls and direct calls—collect calls would involve an operator being on the line between the two callers and asking the receiving caller whether they were willing to accept the charges, to be the one responsible for the cost of the call. It occurs to me that there is a similarity to our communication with God.

In Old Testament times the “common” people seemed to seldom have direct connections with God; rather, those connections commonly came via prophets or priests who served as an intermediary, similar to the operator when making a collect call. When Jesus came, he served as the ultimate intermediary between people and God; but through his death and resurrection and satisfying God’s demand for payment for our sins, he also cancelled the need for us to have any further intermediary. In John 16:23a in a conversation with his disciples about his impending death and resurrection, Jesus stated, “At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything, for you can go directly to the Father and ask him.” (TLB) The Revised Standard Version states it as, “In that day you will ask nothing of me.” How wonderful that we can go directly to the Father with all our cares and concerns, our joys and our sorrows—that we now can feel a direct connection with God.

Another aspect is responsibility—with a collect call, the one receiving the call takes responsibility for the call; with a direct call, it is the caller who takes responsibility. God gives us free will because our relationship with him is more meaningful when we choose to seek him out.

We make direct connection with God via prayer. Jesus knew where to turn to when he felt alone, sad, frustrated, anguish, etc.—he prayed to the Father. Jesus told us that when you pray, go to a quiet place, and he himself often retreated away from others to pray. Praying in a quiet place helps us to focus more on God, without our thoughts being too distracted by the world.

And so God waits, he waits for our “direct call,” for our direct connection with him.

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