Call on Him in Truth

December 7, 2025

You may or may not have heard the story about an eighty-year-old man who was out in the middle of the lake fishing when a frog jumped into his boat. The frog told the man, “If you will kiss me, I’ll turn into a young, beautiful princess, marry you, and we can live happily ever after.” The man picked up the frog and put it in the pocket of his overalls. The frog asked, “Didn’t you hear me about kissing me and turning me into a young, beautiful princess?”  The man replied, “I did hear you, but at my age I’d rather have a talking frog.” Let me ask you a question. How would you like to have a genie to carry around with you and grant all your wishes, or get you out of trouble whenever something bad happens? For an awful lot of Christians, that is the way we treat God. We carry around the ability to pray in our pocket, using it when we want something or when we get ourselves into a fix we can’t get out of. A perfect example of this is the way in which many treat God during the Advent season. We see nativity scenes placed right next to Rudolph and Santa. God is in our minds, somewhere deep down, but unless things are headed south in our lives, God is mostly an afterthought. Even the main Christian radio station, which is playing Christmas songs 24/7 right now, plays three songs about White Christmas and Winter Wonderland, to one song about the real reason for the season. While my little survey is hardly scientific (I counted one day on our way to Clarksville to celebrate Leandra’s birthday), it does show that even among Christians, it’s awfully easy to let God slip to the back of our thoughts, even at Christmas time. Here is a verse that might help us. “The LORD is close to all who call on Him, yes, to all who call on Him in truth” Psalms 145:18 NLT. The first phrase of this sentence is pretty straightforward, but then God adds a caveat. God isn’t necessarily close to all who call on Him. He is close to all who call on Him ”in truth”. That little prepositional phrase tells us God isn’t interested in being a genie in our pockets. He is interested in being close to those who call on Him with the right motive and for the right reasons. Here's a little reminder that is appropriate for Christians during the busiest time of the retail year. God isn’t like Santa. He isn’t interested in providing us with the latest handy-dandy do-ma-fling. On the other hand, He is very interested in drawing close to those who want to draw close to Him. May we all spend our days drawing close to God.

Be blessed and then go be a blessing . . . Bro. Andy