Answer me...

As the weather turns very much colder here, and the first falls of snow being reported around the country, memories of warm Autumn days in Korea and China begin to fade very quickly.
Thankfully the hundreds of photographs I took confirm to me that it wasn't just a dream. I did actually return to Korea a couple of weeks ago.
While visiting the Korean Folk Village near Yongin, south of Seoul, we stumbled upon a film shoot for some Korean costume drama. The picture above shows some of the actors waiting on the call to go on set. If you look closely, you'll see that at least three of them are busy with their mobile phones while they wait.
I wonder if any of them have had their phones ring in the middle of a take?
These days there seems to be no place to escape the cell-phone.
During a service of worship in Korea, where I was preaching, a cell-phone started ringing very loudly. It wasn't too difficult to see who was the owner of the phone was as a red-faced member of the choir struggled to get into her handbag to switch it off!
It's a wonderful invention, and one I use myself from time to time, but maybe the mobile phone has made many of us even less patient than before. We expect to be able to reach people at any time and we get disappointed, frustrated, and even annoyed if they don't answer. (Well that is certainly how I have felt when trying to get hold of someone recently.)
How different from the old days when missionaries, or other travellers, went to far off lands are were never heard of for years at a time.
Maybe it also affects the attitude of some of us Christians to the business of prayer. If we don't get the answer we want straight away then we give up all too easily, forgetting that the primary point and purpose of prayer is not about getting what we want but about building a relationship of trust with God.
If I was God I think there would be times when I would put my phone to 'silent' or even switch it off altogether... there's always the answering machine, after all. (Now there's another device with an ironic name, since it never gives you an answer to your question!)