Are You Listening?

Today while I was waiting for my number to be called at the Kansas Department of the Treasury where I went to apply for an in-state title and register my new car, I opened my Gideon's Bible and my eyes fell on Acts 28:28. It reads slightly different in the English Standard Version (ESV) than it does in the New King James. Luke writes, "Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen." What is the "therefore" there for? He had just been quoting the Prophet Isaiah in chapter 6, verse 9 and following about how the people of Israel were not going to listen, because they were refusing to hear, to see or to understand, but, he says, the Gentiles will listen. The New King James says "and they will hear it," a slight variation on "they will listen." But I was reading it in the ESV from my little Gideons New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs, and I don't know for sure why it struck me the way it did. "They will listen," he wrote or "they will hear it," either way is effective, but all I can say is "They will listen" really spoke to me. Why would those three little words make such an impact? I can only think of one reason, and that reason is that God wanted to speak that to me. I thought to myself, first of all, how could Luke make that assertion? How did he know? He could only have known by the Spirit of God revealing it to him, first of all, and God also knew how to use those words to speak to anyone who was listening. In this case, that set of ears belonged to me. Without going into what differences might exist between the word "listen" and the word "hear" and without wondering what Greek word was used, I am just going to focus on what God was saying to me. To me, God was saying, "Are you listening?" which I did not receive at the time, but only later on as I was thinking about it. I am really quite weary of this critical, hypocritical and Pharisaical generation in which, unfortunately, we find ourselves today, and I do not want to get trapped like a fly in a spider web looking at others and criticizing them, but I must say it seems to me that I am not the only one who has a listening problem. I want more than anything to hear what God is saying to me, and yet I get caught up in the trappings of daily living, and worries and responsibilities and they become like prison bars around me so instead of listening I'm hurrying and worrying and feeling defeated and heavy-hearted, and that is definitely not what God wants for any of us. So, the best use of our time, I think God is saying to us, is, "Listen to Me," so, no matter what you're doing, listen to God. If you read your Bible, if you do what God is asking you to do, you will have peace, and isn't that what everyone is looking for? There is no peace like peace with God, and I really believe it is what the whole world is looking for, just that most of them are looking in the wrong places. And that is where I'm going to stop for tonight. I believe the reason so many people are upset these days is simply because they are not listening to God. He created all things and even came to earth to be the sacrifice for our sins and rose again from the dead to give us life eternal when we were fighting against him with all our might, and yet we refuse to listen to him when he's trying to get our attention. We need to do better.