There are some people in our community who want to drive golf balls while talking on the phone. Or drive their cars while doing a long-distance deal.

For folks like these, the key to contentment is a "hands-free earpiece" for their cell phone. Touted as "The Safest Way to use Your Cellular Phone," this earpiece and cord combination gives you the convenience of complete hands-free use -- no more one-handed club-swinging, or dangerous driving while you talk on the phone!

If only Chad Renegar had been putting one to use. Ever heard of Chad? He's the 27-year-old Atlanta stockbroker who was cruising in a Nissan Maxima on a fateful night last April. Along for the ride were banker John Lauck and model Niki Taylor. Chad reached for a ringing cell phone and lost control of his car, plowing into a utility pole. The two men escaped with minor injuries, but Niki Taylor had her liver torn in two, and ended up in the intensive-care unit of Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital.

During the first month, she underwent four surgeries, and even then remained at risk for significant complications and setbacks, including infections and blood clots. (Jill Smolowe, "A Will to Live," People, June 4, 2001, 108-110)

Would talking hands-free have made her injury-free?

Could be.

Of course, cell phones themselves are not inherently evil. Phones alone don't cause terrible accidents if they are used properly. The problem is that we are a multi-tasking society, and we get ourselves in trouble when we try to do too much at once. I was recently following a driver who swerved suddenly onto the shoulder of Braddock Road, and then back into traffic. I was sure she was drunk, until I looked more closely and noticed that she had momentarily lost control while reaching for her cell phone.

Face it: Highway driving is hazardous enough without the interruption of a ringing phone, or the sudden desire to dial a 10-digit number at 65 miles per hour. Distractions are the problem, regardless of the type of cell phone you use.

It's better to be hands-on than hands-free. As in: Hands on the steering wheel.

In today's passage from Habakkuk, the prophet struggles to get God's attention: "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?" (1:2). Habakkuk gives the impression that the Lord is distant and distracted, chatting away on a heavenly hands-free cell phone while cruising through the limitless reaches of the universe. "Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?" laments the prophet. "Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise" (1:3).

Habakkuk is thoroughly disgusted with the violence and the destruction he sees all around, and he is feeling as fed up as a victim of a cell-phone-related car wreck. Laws are becoming slack and justice is failing to prevail; he fears that judgments are being perverted by the relentless lobbying of the wicked (1:4).

And God? Where's God in all this? Swinging a golf club while talking hands-free?

No. Never. "Write the vision" commands the Lord; "make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it" -- make it as big as a highway billboard (2:2). In response to Habakkuk's complaint, God speaks and gives the loud and clear message that he will surely act to re-establish justice. The Lord is not a hands-free God, cruising through the cosmos without a care for his creation.

Instead, he's a hands-on God.

Our Lord is not a distracted driver on a reckless trip through human history. No ringing phones or casual chit-chat can cause him to take his hands off the wheel, and put his people at risk. If God's involvement in life seems to be delayed, it's not because God is busy multi-tasking and just can't get to it; no, it's because the time is not right. "If it seems to tarry, wait for it" explains the Lord; "it will surely come, it will not delay" (2:3).

The command to "wait for it" is such a tough one for us today. We crave instant gratification, and often refuse to wait for the right time. -- We want the threat of Anthrax in the mail to be eliminated RIGHT NOW. -- We want security problems at airports to be solved RIGHT NOW. -- We want the war against terrorism to be won RIGHT NOW. -- We want our military personnel to come home safely RIGHT NOW. -- We want our gnawing fear and anxiety to go away RIGHT NOW.

But maybe the time is not right. In a sense, the whole dangerous driving-and-phoning phenomenon is a symptom of our impatience, because it reveals our urgent need to make connections and get ahead, right now, all at once -- when our primary concern should be arriving safely at our destination.

Wait for it, says the Lord. The appointed time will surely come. God reassures Habakkuk that he's a hands-on God, one who always has his hands on us. The Lord has a steady, strong grip on the steering wheel of history, and will never be distracted. God is not ignoring us, he is simply asking us to settle in for a long and winding and sometimes difficult road-trip. Climb on board and trust me, God says, for "the righteous live by their faith" (2:4).

The righteous don't expect instant gratification, you see, but they live by their faith in a hands-on God. A generation ago, they trusted the Lord to be at work in the struggle for civil rights, and they rode the twisting and bumpy road toward racial equality. They trusted God to be working for freedom in totalitarian states, and kept the faith through the long, dark nights of the Cold War. They are now trusting the Lord to lead them into new forms of cooperation in a war against terrorism -- one which requires complicated alliances and agreements to be made between a wide range of people, rich and poor, First World and Third World, in every hemisphere and on every continent.

Will global harmony happen overnight? Not a chance. But as we wait for God, it's so important to trust in God. As we look for justice, it's so important to act with justice. As we dream of new ways to live, it's so important to live -- yes, really LIVE -- by faith.

Faith is the life, you see. It's the only truly satisfying way to live. Prideful human multi-tasking madness only leads to disaster and death -- just ask the survivors of a cell-phone car crash or two. But faith in God gives us a vision that is plain and permanent and peaceful, one that will surely come to all who are willing to wait for it.

As strange as this may sound, I believe that there have been some improvements in our common life since September 11. We're more united as a nation. More serious. More committed. More faithful. We're not as obsessed with acquiring the latest gadgets or perfecting our golf swings or making a quick fortune in the stock market.

We're not the corrupt and decadent society that Islamic terrorists accuse us of being. Beginning with September 11, what has been revealed so clearly is our honor, our courage, our selflessness, our faith.

The challenge is to maintain these virtues, as individuals and as a community. In the days to come, we should try to remember that we are not alone in this struggle, but we have a hands-on God. Our Lord is in the driver's seat, and he's not going to make any dangerous moves. God is going to give us what we need to reach our destination: guidance and goodness, courage and commitment, power and patience. The very best thing we can do is slide over and let him drive, and try to let go of our multitasking madness and our craving for control.

We may as well forget about control. We never really had it. And our multi-tasking mania? It only led to confusion and the occasional collision. This is the time to get back to basics, including our fundamental trust in God.

It's always better to put our faith in a hands-on God than in a hands-free cell phone. While both have many attractive features, only one can connect us with a truly peaceful, satisfying, and everlasting life. Amen.