The other day I was doing something of great importance. I can’t exactly remember what it was, but I am sure it was very important. While I was accomplishing that critical task, I was reminded of how old I am. “How old are you?” you may ask.
Well… I am old enough to remember when telephones had to be connected to wires in your house to work. I am old enough to remember when dialing a phone was not accomplished by pushing buttons but by going around a circle. I am old enough to remember that my family had what was called a party line.
For those of you who are youngsters, a party line was a phone line that was actually shared by more than one house. That meant at times you could pick up the phone to call someone and there would be people already talking. That also meant if you picked up the phone very carefully and listened very quietly, you could learn all kinds of stuff—not that I ever did that, but it seems like I remember others who might have done that.
I am old enough to remember when your phone rang, you had no idea who was calling. There was no Caller ID. You couldn’t let the call go to voice mail because that didn’t exist. You just had to be brave enough to answer and then deal with whoever it was who had called you.
I am old enough to remember when the first wireless phones came out. What a technological wonder those things were.
I am old enough to remember when the first cell phones appeared. Of course, you had to carry them around in a little suitcase.
Now we carry smart phones. It really is amazing what these devices can accomplish. You can text. You can check the news, the weather, the stock market, your email, Facebook. You can search the World Wide Web. Your phone can give you step-by-step directions to any place in the world. And you can actually talk to someone on your phone, not that people actually do that anymore.
The phone I have has this very small woman named Siri who lives in it. I have never seen her. But I have heard her. She knows all kind of stuff. All you have to do is ask her. But there is at least one thing that she doesn’t know.
Oddly enough, she doesn’t know how to pronounce my last name. As many times as she has heard it while I was calling family members, she just can’t get it right. She wants to use a long “I” sound in my name. Everybody knows it is a short “I” sound. You would think she would learn. Maybe she knows and is just being stubborn… She obviously doesn’t care about me, or she would say my name correctly. It isn’t that difficult. I was actually saying my name correctly at a very young age.
But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter if Siri knows my name. Here’s why. Jesus knows it. I am actually quite convinced He knows how to say it correctly. I am equally convinced He actually knew my name long before I was ever born. He is smart like that.
If you stop to think about it, it really is pretty cool that the one and only Son of the one, true God knows us by name. We should think about that a bit. By the way, that’s not all He knows about us. Maybe we can talk about that later.
