The Phone That Never Sleeps

In 2019, Marcus Rivera of Dallas, Texas, was placed on the national organ transplant waiting list for a new heart. His cardiologist told him the call could come at any hour — dawn or midnight, Tuesday or Sunday. There was no way to predict when a matching donor heart would become available.

So Marcus lived in a state of constant readiness. He kept a packed hospital bag by the front door. He charged his phone every night without fail. He never traveled more than four hours from the medical center. He told his children, "If I'm mowing the lawn and this phone rings, I drop everything." For eleven months, he waited — not passively, but actively. He took his medications. He walked his neighborhood to keep his body as strong as possible. He lived each ordinary day with extraordinary alertness.

The call finally came at 3:47 on a Wednesday morning. Marcus was ready.

When Jesus tells His disciples in Mark 13 to "Watch!" — to stay alert because no one knows the day or the hour when the Son of Man will return — He is not describing anxious dread. He is describing Marcus Rivera's kind of readiness: a life arranged around a promised arrival. The fig tree puts out its leaves and you know summer is near. The signs are real. The promise is certain. The timing belongs to the Father alone.

The question is not whether the Master is coming. The question is whether we will be found ready, bags packed, hearts prepared, living as people who actually believe the phone will ring.