Much Better Than High Tech

Do you remember when a blackberry was a black berry? You ate it; you didn’t “play” with it. And you didn’t have to use your thumbs. Now we have i-Pods, i-Tunes, i-Photos, i-Chats, IDVDs, and a host of other high-tech gadgets that make our heads swim. If you know your way around computers and other techie toys, you are either an adult with a uniquely wired brain or a teenager or preteen. Most of us wonder how the world got so high tech and what quantum leaps lie ahead.

Even the purchase of a new telephone can lead some of us to the edge of a nervous breakdown. How do you set the date, day, and time? How do you adjust the ringer’s volume? Voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, and setting up a frequently-called numbers directory can produce night sweats and nightmares. You can plop the receiver down almost anywhere in the house. It doesn’t have to remain on the base station. But some of us tend to forget where we place an object, so who wants to turn a house upside down and inside out in search of a phone?

Think back to “the good old days.”

A manual typewriter hardly ever broke down. Occasionally, typists had to clean the keys and roller and install a new ribbon, but they never had to rely on Geeks on Call to rescue them at $100 per hour.

If you wanted to make a phone call in the old days, you simply dialed the number. Either the person you called answered or didn’t. If no one answered, you called again later. You could call a doctor’s office and talk to a live person. That made scheduling an appointment or getting test results a lot easier than what you endure today. “Please listen to all options before making a selection. If this is a life-threatening emergency, please hang up and call 911. If you are calling from a physician’s office or a pharmacy, dial one now. To refill a prescription, contact your pharmacy, and your pharmacist will call us. For a new prescription, dial two now. To leave a message for a nurse or to inquire about test results, press three now. To schedule an appointment, press four now. For billing, press five.”

It seems high tech has gummed up most communication lines. A customer can’t even contact his telephone company without having to negotiate his way through a series of menu options that lead to a long hold followed by a response by someone who is struggling with the English language.

Fortunately, we don’t have to go high tech to reach God. Prayer gets us straight through to heaven from anywhere at any time. We never hear, “If this is a life-threatening emergency, hang up and call Michael the Archangel or Gabriel.”

God promised, “Call to me and I will answer you” (Jeremiah 33:3). Now that may not be a high tech system, but it is user friendly, voice activated, and reliable. Prayer never crashes, never experiences a power outage, and never puts us on hold.

© Jim Dyet