The Phone Book

It was hanging on the mailbox.
I saw it from the dining room window.
My husband brought it in when he went to get the mail.
He was carrying it in one of those plastic grocery store bags.

The phone book is here, he announced.
He proceeded to put the phone book on my desk in the kitchen.
Can you just put it in recycling, please? I suggested.
I guess it’s an end of an era, I found myself saying wistfully.

We still have a landline.
So many of my friends have gotten rid of their house phone.
Their calls are made and received exclusively through their cell phone.
I’m not ready for that yet.

Only close friends and family have my cell phone number.
I can screen sales calls that inevitably come right around dinnertime.
So much has changed just in the years of my married life alone.
We have gone from push button wall phones, to cordless phones, and then to cell phones.

I am the dinosaur that still has a landline.
I am the dinosaur that still gets a phone book on her mailbox.
I looked at the phone book as it lay there in recycling.
What used to be about 2-3 inches thick was now a mere half inch along the spine.

Phone books were sometimes my booster seat as a little girl.
Once, my mother put two phone books on the dining room chair.
One phone book was for residential numbers and the other was for businesses.
The phone book was every family’s lifeline.

You found a plumber or ordered a pizza after looking in the phone book.
You perused the ads in the yellow pages.
You got the address of a local business you wanted to visit.
You took advantage of the coupons that were in the center of the book.

The two phone books were just the right height for me.
However, there was no traction.
The books would begin to slide off the chair during our meal.
My mother had to figure out another way for me to sit at the table easily.

The phone book came to our mailbox when my children were little.
They would run and get the large book and bring it into the house.
The first thing they would want to do was find our name.
They enjoyed seeing our name and address on the page.

They would remember what page we were on in the massive paper book.
They would enjoy finding our name again and again.
They did that just to make sure we were still in the phone book, it seemed.
They were always surprised at the number of people that had the same last name.

It does seem to be an end of an era.
We are witnessing the phone book’s demise.
The Internet brought the phone book right to our computer.
The Internet rendered the phone book obsolete.

As cell phone usage increased, the phone book got progressively smaller.
There are very few homes that have the phone book delivered.
I thought we asked to be removed from the list of people that receive a phone book.
Apparently, we are still on the list.

There is another list in another book.
It is a book where it is vital to find your name.
This book is not superfluous.
This book keeps an eternal record.

It is an eternal record with the names of all the overcomers.
What wonderful word: overcomer; one who prevails over something.
To overcome means to surmount.
If one overcomes, then he gains the victory; he wins; he conquers.

The one who overcomes will never have his name blotted from the Book of Life.
Never.
The one who overcomes has promises that he can hold onto in God’s Word.
Those promises make the toil and the difficulty of this life worthwhile.

The overcomer will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God…will not be hurt by the second death…will receive the hidden manna and will also be given a white stone with a new name written on it known only to him who receives it…will be given authority over the nations…will be dressed in white and will never have his name blotted out from the book of life, but will have his name acknowledged before the Father and His angels…will be made a pillar in the temple of God…will be given the right to sit with Jesus on His throne just as Jesus overcame and sat down with His Father on His throne. (Revelation 2:7,11,17,26 and 3:5,12,21)

There are promises we can count on if we overcome.
God the Father has a Book of Life.
If we believe in His Son Jesus, and trust in Him alone for salvation, we are in that Book.
When God opens that Book, we will find our name.

What a glorious day that will be.
However, some may find that their name is not in God’s Book.
One must trust in the perfect, finished work of Jesus in order to find their name there.
No good works, no church attendance, and no offering will enable us to overcome on our own.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuse them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Revelation 12:10,11)

Our name is still in the phone book that was hanging on our mailbox.
However soon that phone book will be obsolete.
God’s Book of Life will never be obsolete.
God’s Book of Life will never be replaced by something else.

Will you find your name there?