Thoughts On A Given Day

I played High School football. It had not been my intent to do so. I did not consider that I quite possessed a “football build.” Nevertheless, I played. It started when a senior student, who had played football, and was planning to do so again, called and asked me to come out for the team during the summer prior to my junior year of school. Apparently there were not enough players on the team for them to be able to practice properly. So, being the soft hearted person that I was (you know, the guy who didn’t understand the necessity of sometimes saying “no”), I volunteered myself for duty as a tackling dummy in practice. I ended up starting on defense for the next two seasons. My father did not always have the opportunity to watch my practices, because he went to school during the day studying for the ministry, and he worked most evenings at a local manufacturing plant, but I can still recall the times when he was able to come. If he was able to be there he was there. That communicated to me that he cared, that he was interested in what I was doing, that he loved me. Later, when my son played High School football I did not always have the opportunity to watch his practices either (I missed his entire senior season while I was in Iraq), but, when I did have the opportunity, I tried to be there, because I remembered what it meant to me when my father came to watch my practices. I still recall one day when it was raining and players on my son’s team looked over to see one father standing with an umbrella watching the practice. One player (who I did not know then, but I know now, had a father who was a committed Christian) commented that that had to be his father, because nobody else would be crazy enough to stand out in the rain watching practice. My son looked over and said, “No, that is my father.” He was right. I had managed to get off work early, and I was there watching my son practice. My being there communicated something. I cared. I was not doing it to communicate. I was doing it because I cared, nevertheless, my being there did communicate something, as does everything we do.
Every day of our lives we are either communicating or failing to communicate, seeing or failing to see, hearing or failing to hear. The day we are born we come out screaming at the top of our lungs, trying to communicate, hoping that someone is listening. That never really changes. As we live our lives we continue trying to communicate verbally, hoping that someone will listen; we continue trying to communicate physically, hoping that someone will notice; or we continue trying to communicate mentally, hoping that someone will somehow, perhaps telepathically, perhaps spiritually, hear our thoughts. It is hard to imagine anything that we do as people that doesn’t communicate in one form or another. A kind word, a smile, a cold stare, a helping hand in time of need, a gesture, body language, silence – all of these are methods of communication, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. The question is not are we communicating. The question is what are we communicating to others, and are we paying attention to what others are attempting to communicate to us.
The Bible is a record of a portion of God’s communication with mankind. He has revealed himself to us through various means, but it has not been a one way street of communication. He has also heard us. He has heard our cries, and he has responded to those cries. In the book of Exodus, it is stated over and over again that God had heard the cries of his people. He had heard, and he was doing something in response to what he had heard.
He has also seen us. He has seen us as we are and where we are, and he has loved us just the same. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he states that God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God saw our sinful state, and he did the one thing he could do to save us. He gave his own life for ours in spite of who and where we are. Of all the ways that God has communicated to us throughout history, the act of sending his son Jesus Christ to die in our place on the cross was the most powerful. He saw our sinful and hopeless state; he heard our cries; he did something about it.
Again, the question we, as Christians, have to ask ourselves is not are we communicating to others. We are all definitely communicating something. The question we have to ask ourselves is what are we communicating? When the world sees and hears us do they see and hear the love of God, or do they see someone who has no more hope than they do themselves? Do they see someone who is loving their neighbor, or are they seeing someone who is loving themselves? What are we hearing of the world’s cries for help? What needs of others are we seeing? Are we walking through life with blinders and ear plugs? Or are we hearing and seeing the need. God heard and saw our need, and he responded. He expects the same of us. God is always at work. It is up to us to join him there, and that is hard to do if we do not hear – if we do not see.

Genesis 16:11
New International Version (NIV)
11 the Lord has heard of your misery
Exodus 3:7-8
English Standard Version (ESV)
7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey
Malachi 3:16
New International Version (NIV)
16 Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard.
Romans 5:6-8
English Standard Version (ESV)
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Mark 4:3-9
New King James Version (NKJV)
3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. 5 Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. 7 And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” 9 And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”