Will You Listen?

Today’s message was written by my friend Roger Kunkel.

Some time ago, someone placed this ad in a Kansas newspaper. “I will listen to you talk for 30 minutes without comment for $5. We smile at that, maybe laugh. It sounds like a stunt, a hoax. But the person putting the ad in the paper was serious. Did anybody call? You be they did! It wasn’t long before this individual was receiving 10 to 20 calls a day.

The pain of loneliness was so sharp that some were willing to try anything for a half-hour of companionship. The truth is that every one of us encounters some person, probably daily, who would be willing to pay someone to listen. The tragedy is, we are not sensitive enough to identify them, or we don’t care enough to respond. Will you start looking for those people, and will you listen to them?

Isaiah said: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

Let us pray: Loving God, walk with us this day, and by your grace enable us to see possibilities rather than problems, windows of opportunity rather than closed doors, persons rather than things, and life rather than mere existence. Thank you, God, for being our Creator, our Guide, and our Friend. In Jesus’ name. Amen.