There are professional listeners around. Some have doctors’ degrees. They have a way of drawing us out and making us feel better for having talked. But experts charge for their services and tend to keep us coming back.
Most of us have friends who are also good listeners, and to whom we can talk for free. Friends tend to agree with us, which is nice, but more often what we really need is someone to tell us the unflattering truth.
To whom, then, can we talk for free, who both loves us and will tell us the truth? Talk to God. He will listen. God knows more than the “experts,” yet doesn’t charge for His services. He loves us more than any earthly friends, but cannot lie.
But maybe you find prayer too abstract. If God isn’t real to you, you need to enter into a relationship with Him through the new birth, and develop that relationship through obedience. “Come unto me,” Jesus invites us, “and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn [to know] me” (Matthew 11:28, 29).
Do you fear what God may have to say about you or your sin? You shouldn’t. Friends listen to each other. God hears you. Now you listen to God. It will only make you better. God shows us ourselves, and then offers the remedy—repentance, restitution, and redemption.
Our need to talk may take us further than we thought. When we learn to hear as well as talk to God, we untangle our lives, not just our current dilemma.
God has other friends for us who also will tell us the truth. The Bible is first. It is more than a book. It’s a Presence. The Bible is God’s key way of speaking to us. Open and read “The Book,” and you will learn all about yourself and God. Then there are others who, like yourself, have been born again and who have chosen to live together in the disciplined community of the church. These are friends who tell you the truth because the truth has made them free (John 8:32, 36). They know it’s the only thing that will free you. They would not offer less than the best. The truth may wound before it heals. If we’re selfish we may turn against friends who tell us the truth. But the Bible says: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6).
To whom will you talk? Get acquainted with Jesus Christ, the “Friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). If you don’t know how to find Him, find one of those true friends who does. He will lead you to prayer, to the Bible, and to God.
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much”? (James 5:16). Talk to God.
-by Dallas Witmer