When I was in high school cell phones became much more common, and I remember my brother trying to convince my parents that not only did he need one, he also needed texting added to the phone plan. After a year of lobbying his extremely unreasonable parents, they finally caved.

My dad’s predictions were instantly realized. My brother would almost never call his friends on the phone, preferring to text them instead. As my dad was watching him clumsily plunk out a message on a tiny keyboard (this was long before smart phones), he jokingly suggested that it was only a matter of time before he could get voice recognition texting. Soon after that advancement we would see an application that could take a received text and read it in the sender’s voice. After a generation or two of this nonsense, some bright young kid named Alexander Graham Bell the IV will introduce to his peers the concept of instant response voice messaging—the person you are attempting to communicate with will hear your text as you are speaking it and will have the opportunity to immediately respond to it, to which you then will have the opportunity to respond back. The whole world will think this a brilliant innovation, for, by that time, no one has actually used a phone to talk with another person for years. 

We had a good laugh at the thought, but you know it’s only been about 15 years and it has nearly come to pass. So many people use voice to text to send messages and I often send voice notes as well. 

Why do we do this? Why do people plunk out a message one key stroke at a time (with their thumbs no less) rather than hit their speed dial button and actually have the semblance of a conversation? Why do we send a recording of our voices?  What are the hidden advantages of this modern form of communication that still seems so cumbersome to my dad? Well 15 years back my brother would say that it actually saves time because it gets rid of all the chit chat while focusing on the real intent of the call. I suppose he had a point, but it feels a bit like a person who wants to talk at you rather than to you, or better yet, with you. 

When you talk to a person you have to stick around for the listening portion of the conversation. When you talk at them, as soon as you are done you can move on to more important things. The bottom line is this: the very notion of texting suggests that a conversation face to face with a person, or even over the phone, is somehow an inconvenience in our lives, at least at the time of the “text.” Even when we receive a text message in response to our previously sent text message, the attitude often is “get to the point.” “I don’t have time for lengthy explanations, requests, or complaints; and if you start to prattle on, I can always just skim the message since I know where you are going with this anyway [and here is the true crux of the matter], and you will be none the wiser.” Of course, as someone who sends and receives text messages daily, I am not entirely condemning the use of texting. It is a part of our world. But I do try to be careful when and how I use it because texting can potentially be a way of turning a meaningful conversation that expresses a genuine interest in another human being, into something entirely self-serving.

When I was a kid and my dad was lecturing his children on these things he argued that this was quite similar to what we have done to prayer. The listening part of prayer too often has gone by the wayside. We recite our grocery list of wants and perceived needs, followed by “in Jesus’ name, amen,” and then quickly move on to the next task which might include eating, sleeping, or going about our daily duties. Yet, when it comes to communicating with the Divine, the Word of God places the emphasis, as well as the promised blessing, on listening to God. Isaiah 55:1-3 states: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters…. Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.” It is only after these four exhortations to “listen to me,” “give ear to me,” and “hear me” that the prophet invites us to approach God with our burdens. “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6). 

We actually believe that the benefit of prayer is telling God what we want him to do and him doing it in a timely manner. These verses suggest, however, that our true advantage is realized only when we listen to God and do what he has asked of us—“hear me, that your soul may live.” It is not that our Father in heaven does not want to hear what is troubling us. He not only wants to hear the cares of our heart, he wants to help us carry them. Nevertheless, like a loving parent, his desire is that the help he provides comes out of true conversation with him and not the impersonal demand of a Uni student writing home with the simple message – “send money.” My dad said that if any of his children ever tried such a ploy, we would receive his one and only text message – “call me!” 

Something tells me that many of our prayers have remained unanswered because when we accosted God with our grocery list, he said “for your own benefit let’s talk about this.” Unfortunately, we had already moved on to the tasks of our busy life and never heard his invitation to discuss with him the answers to our burdens. As we enter into 2026, let us remember God’s invitation in Isaiah 55.

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters…. Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”