We all keep certain numbers we believe will always answer. Our achievements. Our reputation. The family name we inherited. Then a season comes when we dial them, and one by one the lines go dead.
Core Message:
When the people, achievements, reputation, heritage, and earthly securities we rely upon prove inadequate, God remains our ever-present Father and Redeemer. True security is found not in what we inherit or accomplish, but in our relationship with Him.
The Number That No Longer Answers
A Wake-Up Call on Isaiah 63:16
“For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our father; our Redeemer from of old is your name.”
Isaiah 63:16
അബ്രാഹം ഞങ്ങളെ അറിയുന്നില്ലെങ്കിലും ഇസ്രായേല് ഞങ്ങളെ അംഗീകരിക്കുന്നില്ലെങ്കിലും, അങ്ങാണു ഞങ്ങളുടെ പിതാവ്; കർത്താവേ, അങ്ങു തന്നെയാണു ഞങ്ങളുടെ പിതാവ്. ഞങ്ങളുടെ വിമോചകൻ എന്നാണ് പണ്ടുമുതലേ അങ്ങയുടെ നാമം.
ഏശയ്യാ 63 : 16
There is a particular silence that only comes after a call goes unanswered. You know the one. You dial a number that has always picked up. You wait for the voice that has always steadied you. And instead, the line just rings, and rings, and finally drops into nothing.
Israel knew that silence. Standing in the rubble of everything they had trusted, the people of God did something almost desperate. They began calling the old numbers. Abraham first — the father of the faith, the man of the covenant, the name that had opened every door. Surely Abraham would answer. Surely Jacob would pick up. These were the men whose blood ran in their veins, whose stories were their identity, whose names were their security.
And the line went dead.
“Abraham does not know us,” they confess. “Israel does not acknowledge us.” The fathers were not answering. Not because they had failed, but because they could not reach across the grave to rescue the living. Heritage, it turns out, has no hands. A bloodline cannot lift you out of exile. A famous name cannot pay a debt it never owed.
The Numbers We Still Dial
Before you place this comfortably in ancient history, consider your own contacts list. We all keep certain numbers we believe will always answer. The number of our achievements — surely what I have built will hold me. The number of our reputation — surely what people think of me will save me. The number of our family standing, our position, our religious credentials — surely being known as a good person, a church person, a respectable person, is enough.
And then a season comes when you dial those numbers and no one answers. The achievements cannot comfort you at three in the morning. The reputation cannot sit with you in the hospital corridor. The name you inherited cannot follow you into the room where you finally face yourself. One by one, the lines go dead. And you are left holding the phone in a silence that feels like being orphaned.
This is not cruelty. This is mercy in disguise. Because every dead line is clearing the way for the one call that has been waiting to be picked up all along.
The Voice That Was Never Busy
Watch what Israel does next. They do not give up. They do not conclude that no one is there. In the very same breath where they admit the fathers are silent, they turn and cry out: “You, O Lord, are our Father.”
Here is the turn that changes everything. The God they are calling is not a number that might answer. He is the line that was never busy, the voice that never went to silence, the Father who has been holding the receiver since before they were born. “Our Redeemer from of old is your name,” they declare. Redeemer — in Hebrew, the goʼel, the kinsman who steps in to buy back his own, to pay what they cannot pay, to claim them when no one else will. This is not a distant deity screening His calls. This is the family member who answers on the first ring and says, simply, I have got you.
Do you feel the weight of it? When Abraham could not, God could. When the bloodline ran out, the Father remained. When every inherited security collapsed, the One who formed you in the first place was still on the line, still listening, still saying your name.
Pick Up the Right Call
So here is your wake-up call this morning. Stop redialing the numbers that have already gone dead. Stop waiting for your achievements to call back, for your reputation to rescue you, for a name or a lineage or a status to do what only a Father can do. They were never meant to carry that weight, and they never will.
There is a call already connected. The Redeemer from of old is on the line, and He has been calling your name longer than you have been able to hear it. You are not an orphan scrambling through an empty contacts list. You are a son, a daughter, claimed by the One whose name is Redeemer — not because of who your fathers were, but because of who your Father is.
Put down the phone that does not answer. Today, pick up the One that always does.
A Prayer
Father, I have spent too long dialling numbers that cannot save me. Forgive me for trusting in my name, my work, and my standing more than in You. When every other line goes silent, let me hear Your voice. You are my Redeemer from of old. Today, I pick up Your call. Amen.
Which “number” have you been dialling that God may be asking you to put down today?
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Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the verse shared this morning (5 June 2026) by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr Selvister Ponnumuthan — a cherished practice he has faithfully continued for over three years.
Reflection 151 of 2026 • Wake-Up Calls • Rise & Inspire • Post Streak 1047
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