[313 words]
Earlier this week, my wife received a call from an unfamiliar toll free number. I answered it for her and it happened to be a computerized message stating that an inmate from the Weld County jail in Colorado has called this number and asked if we would accept the charges for the call that could not last more than twelve minutes. Being confused and never ever receiving a call like this before, I immediately hung up not sure if this was a prank or real. Being from that area and still having phone numbers with that area code, I figured it was a wrong number. Plus, our last child from Colorado moved back a couple months ago, so it wasn’t him in jail.
After a few light-hearted moments talking about it, I began thinking how I’ve “hung up” in the past on “inmates” to sin; people who needed to hear the truth of God and needed to be set free from sin, yet, I ignored them. Mostly, I did it because I feared rejection of me. But, what I didn’t realize then is any rejection of me pertaining to the teaching of the Gospel is never a rejection of me, but a rejection of God (Luke 10:16) and His desire to deliver all mankind from their sin.
Being better equipped with an understanding of the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16-17) is a good step to overcoming fear of speaking to others about God. Also, knowing we have other servants we can rely upon (Proverbs 11:14) should really be a boost to our confidence, as well. Finally, knowing someone in our past was there to answer our call (Acts 8:26- 40; Philip answers Eunuch’s call) should provide us with an even greater urgency to never hang up on a soul whose time to listen to the Truth is limited.
Jon Warnes
Brown Trail church of Christ
Bedford, TX