New Phone App: “I Need God Now!”

I have a sure hit for a new phone app: “I Need God Now!” I’d make it universally available for Android, Windows Phone 7 and, of course, the iPhone and iPad. It would instantly be more popular than the thousands of apps available today.

The idea of a God app is not new. There are many cell phone applications that could be classified as such. You may be aware of a controversial iPhone app that attempts to convert people from homosexual behavior through prayer.

There is a children’s game on the market, called “Pocket God,” which enables users to constantly invent new ways to torment the tiny islanders (called Pygmies—really) over whom you “rule.” (That might say something about the impression the creators of the game have about the true God.)

The Vatican initially approved a “Confession” phone application, by which Catholics could pray and “confess” without going to church. (Later, the Vatican backed off from its endorsement.) There is an iPhone app (“iPray”) for Muslim prayers. Numerous other faiths make a variety of phone apps available to their adherents to help them pray.

Instant contact with God

I have something entirely different in mind than the above for a God app. Mine would offer instant emergency contact with God, along with a guaranteed answer. Isn’t that what we all want? I’m not being flippant about a serious subject, but I am writing tongue-in-cheek. That is, I’m not seriously proposing another God app for cell phones. But if I may, I’d like to use this to make an important point.

I would like to know how many people instantly prayed when they saw the tsunami sweeping through the cities of Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture. I’m guessing it was almost everyone. The awesome destruction left us with a helpless feeling in the pit of our stomachs.

Aren’t the words of a prayer the first that tumble from our lips at that awful moment when we know something dreadful is about to happen and can’t do anything to stop it? Don’t we all cry out to God when we see something bearing down on us that we cannot escape—whether the immediacy of a vehicle impact or the prolonged effect of disease?

I noticed in watching and reading the news coverage of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that many journalists, government officials and business people expressed, “You are in our thoughts and prayers.” More typically, people will simply say, “You are in my thoughts”; but major disasters—such as the recent devastation in Japan, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Indonesian tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004—will cause even the nonreligious to add, “… and prayers.”

I wonder what those who express their concern in this way have in mind by “prayer.” The first definition in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is: “an address (as a petition) to God … in word or thought.” Simply put, it is asking God for something. In the above examples, one would ask God for rescue, relief or healing.

But while many people are comfortable saying that they will offer “thoughts and prayers,” they are not comfortable in thinking in terms of a specific deity. They will say “prayer” but not always mention “God.”

The Western world is getting farther and farther away from any public expression of religious faith—except in the case of emergencies. It is as though God has been put away in a compartment, like another of so many phone apps to be tapped only when needed or desired.

The “nones” say “no” to religion

One of the most rapidly growing groups of people in America is the one pollsters call “nones” because they have rejected all present religious institutions. Their numbers are larger than those of mainline Protestants. Curiously, “nones” believe in God, and they hold many of the same values embraced by those who are members of structured religions—including praying regularly. But they reject the approach of structured religions as too strict, too narrow-minded, too insular.

I am not advocating that they embrace traditional Christianity, for I can agree that it is seriously flawed with nonbiblical practices. But we need to know that we can’t approach God with a call-in-an-emergency-only mentality and seriously expect to receive the answer we want from Him.

How to reach God in an emergency

This is too big a subject to address fully in a blog, but there are two principal points everyone should know:

1. God does not always answer the phone. By that, I mean He is not always at our beck and call. There is a time when He is near and a time when He is not. The prophet Isaiah says, “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (emphasis added).  

2. Scripture repeatedly reveals the way to have contact with God: You will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart. There are several references that use those specific words. But if someone has no relationship with God, is it realistic to expect Him to answer the occasional emergency “text message” or prayer? God’s number is not 911, 999 or 112—the standard emergency phone numbers.

Do you want to know how God thinks—and how to reach Him in prayer? In His own words, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” That speaks of a way of thinking—a way of living—that grows out of a relationship with God built and maintained over time.

I am in agreement with the “nones” that are fed up with man-made religion that doesn’t show the way. We attempt to show the true pathway here, through this website.

 

Cecil Maranville coordinates Personal Correspondence for the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.