A Phone Stalker and a Big Fat Fail

It was the fourth hang up I had in 2 days from this number. One of the calls being at 6:30 in the morning. I decided to get to the bottom of the situation.

As I rang the number back I tried to chill out, in case it was someone I knew trying to get me on a different number. But when the guy picked up, I think my annoyance shot through the phone before I could suppress it.

Stranger - Hello?
Me - *pause* Who is this?
S- Mambo?
M- Poa. Who is this?
S- What's your name?
M- It doesn't matter what my name is. You keep calling my number.
S- I'm in some trouble, I need your help.
M- I don't even know who you are.
S- My name's Elijah.

I quickly searched through my head to find any Elijah that I knew that would have my number. I came up empty.

M- Where did you get my number?
S- *hesitation* I found it in my phone.
M- What do you mean you found it in your phone? How did it get there?
S- *another hesitation* My friend had it, maybe he put it there.
M- Listen, I don't know who you are and you need to stop calling me.
S- Why?
M- *baffled* Because! (I know, I'm very clever when taken off guard)
S- But I need to know you.
M- Don't call me again. Bye.

I hung up the phone and stored him in my address book as 'Don't answer - Elijah.'
I wanted answers I knew I would probably never get.
Who was this Elijah? Did I actually know him and just yelled at an acquaintance?
Had some taxi driver given him my number? Had a friend given him my number?
Had he found or stolen a phone that had my number in it and was looking for a way to scam it's address book inhabitants? If so, how excited he must have been to hear my voice; a non-Kenyan accent.
If he really wanted to talk and be taken seriously, why wouldn't he buy credit and call me instead of making me pay for the phone call?

Even if he was in trouble... This situation raises LOADS of security issues if I were to believe him.
But the thing that pissed me off more than that was that this day was crap and I should have seen it coming.

Yesterday I had a bit of a breakthrough. I had been coming through a slightly spiritually challenging week. You know, same old baggage: I'm physically tired, old wounds like to sting every once in a while, I question my usefulness here, can God really use me? etc. etc.

(Side note... Kenyans don't say et cetera, they actually say the letters E T C - bizarre)

So I found myself, again, toying with the idea of believing I lack worth and God reminds me of so many great truths! I am blessed beyond what I deserve, my salvation is solid and paid for, He is listening and knows my heart, He loves me in spite of my imperfections (or should I just call it what it is - my SIN) He has chosen and called and given me a purpose and He continues to pursue me when I stupidly forget that He is standing right there.

So I found joy in being reminded of these truths and found strength enough to surrender some other baggage. And that evening I had an amazing talk with my friend via Skype and we prayed together and talked about our struggles and even decided to memorize some scripture together which correlated with the state of our hearts of late. And I went to bed excited, with Romans 12:9-21 in my head, anticipating a great day.

But the phone rang at 6:30am,
I found a message from someone who I've been trying hard to forget,
My boots broke and the rain came down hard on my unprepared wardrobe,
A friend picked a fight with me for no reason other than he thought it was funny
and then my new phone stalker called once more.

I failed.

I failed miserably. I don't think anyone could see Jesus in me today. My spiritual high came crashing to the ground when I let my guard down for one moment and lacked love in a lot of things. If you have a relationship with Christ you will agree with what I'm about to say because you have inevitably experienced it.

When you take one step closer to God, Satan will try to crush you. 

My buttons were pushed, my heart was aching, my blood boiled a little and more buttons were pushed. I believe that's what happened to me today: Satan was trying to distract me. And God was probably there like, 'woah, wait a second, what about yesterday?'

But I still know the truth. I may have failed, but I'm not a failure. God's still working on me. And the next time you find yourself distracted from the truth, I hope you will see the distractions for what they are and be victorious.