Hello? Hello?

            I was in the library before class one day when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.  Of course, the library is a no cell phone zone, but since no name came up and I didn't recognize the number, I wondered if it could be my doctor who phones from various numbers, returning a call I'd put in to her.  So, I answered.  "Hello," I whispered. A female voice asked where I was.  It didn't quite sound like my doctor, but it could have been.  "In the library," I said as softly as possible, still trying to figure out who I was talking to.  I heard more words like "class" and "someone else" and "room," and I began to think the voice sounded like that of my young friend, Teresa, the mother of a two-year-old. She'd recently gotten a cell phone and I wasn't sure I yet had her number in my phone.  Why would she be asking me about class this morning?  Is she coming to campus today for some reason?  I couldn't quite picture her bringing her bundle-of-energy son to campus, but it would be great to see her. Maybe we could meet for coffee.  "I'm going to Hebrew class in a few minutes," I said, wanting to make it clear that I wouldn't be available until later in the morning. I pressed the phone closer to my ear to hear her reply.

             "I know," the voice said, "That's what I'm calling about, someone else is in our room.  I wonder if Dr. Robertson knows."  Aha!  I was not talking to my doctor, nor to Teresa, but was instead talking to another young friend of mine, my Hebrew classmate, Spring.  Okay, now it was starting to make sense!  We talked a bit more and I agreed that calling our prof. to tell him that someone else had taken up residence in our classroom would be a good idea.  I hung up feeling like a dope for not recognizing her voice. 

            On my walk over to the other building for class, it hit me that the reason I'd had so much trouble hearing and understanding what Spring was trying to tell me was that I hadn't known who I was talking to.  Perhaps that was the disciples' problem, too.

            Thomas said to Him,

             "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?"  John 14:5 

During the same conversation, Philip said,

            "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." John 14:8

            If these questions had come at the beginning of Jesus' time with the disciples, they would have been reasonable enough, but they did not.  These questions were asked during the conversation that took  place just before Jesus and the disciples crossed the Brook Kidron and entered the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus knew His time was at hand.  The angry mob that was soon coming to arrest Him was probably gathering at that very moment.  How disheartened He must have been that after all they'd seen and heard over the past three years, the disciples still didn't really know Him! 

            I imagine the following words being delivered in a weary tone of voice.  To Thomas He replied,

            "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.  If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him."  John 14: 7

            I hear an even wearier tone in His reply to Philip.

            "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the father'?" John 14: 9

            Now, my not knowing who I was talking to on the phone caused me a bit of minor confusion and embarrassment, but it did give both Spring and me a laugh when we met later that morning for class. However, for the disciples not to know Who they were talking to after spending three years in the presence of the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel. . . That was no laughing matter!  

            So what did I learn from my phone conversation and from this conversation recorded in Scripture?  If I don't know who (or Who) is speaking to me, I'll have a lot harder time hearing what they're saying because my mind is busy putting my own meanings on their words instead of hearing the speaker's meaning.  This is true both in my relationships with people, and in my relationship with God.  Are you like this, too, or is it just me?  Surely we've all been guilty of this at some time or another.

            Lord, I want to know You so well that I don't impose my own meanings on Your Word, but instead hear exactly what You mean for me to hear.  Help me also in my relationships with people ―my husband, my children and their spouses, my grandchildren, my friends, the new people I meet― to do the same.  In our market-oriented world where words have become cheap because they're in such abundance, help me to sift through the abundance and hear people's hearts, and most all, Lord, help me to hear Yours. 

Daye Phillippo

December 2009