The Privileged Life: When No One Listens to You
“Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them….” (Malachi 3:16)
I admit I’m a compulsive hand-washer.
I work in the kitchen all the time, and I like to keep food, utensils, and surfaces clean…especially my hands. I’m not an extreme germophobe, but frequent hand-washing has kept me healthy over the years and made me more comfortable cooking for others.1
Can you imagine being seen by a surgeon who wouldn’t wear disposable gloves or wash his hands between patients? Wouldn’t you be baffled by a scientist who didn’t believe in bacteria or viruses?
That was the case almost 200 years ago, before the discovery of microscopic organisms and how they caused infection…until a Hungarian physician/scientist named Ignaz Semmelweis challenged the status quo about disease treatment with a simple suggestion: hand-washing.
Semmelweis worked at a maternity hospital where doctors typically moved from bed to bed helping women through childbirth, but they never stopped to clean up between patients. The new mothers frequently died from the spread of “childbed fever” as a result.
When Semmelweis suspected the cause of the endemic might be rooted in the way people touched each other, he required all staff, including himself, to wash their hands with a chlorinated solution between patients.
Deaths and infections at the hospital, which had been as high as 18 percent, dropped to less than 2 percent. It was a remarkable discovery, and Semmelweis proved that clean hands provided good medicine. His was a trail-blazing measure in the advancement of modern health and antiseptic methods.2
So why do so few people outside of Hungary know of Semmelweis? You’d think he’d have the same name recognition as that of Louis Pasteur or Jonas Salk.
The problem is that no one believed him at the time. When Semmelweis presented his findings to his medical peers, they dismissed him completely and ridiculed him. Despite all his arguments and documentation, the so-called expert scientists of the day wouldn’t accept Semmelweis’s theory—it was insulting and preposterous for them to believe in something they couldn’t see.
Sadly, after desperate attempts to persuade fellow physicians, Semmelweis was considered delusional and was eventually committed to a mental institution where he died after guards beat him. It was several years later when scientists confirmed Semmelweis was right. His aseptic techniques have evolved into safe treatments today at medical facilities for injuries and diseases, and he is remembered as the “savior of mothers.”
Have you had a similar experience as Semmelweis had? When no one listened to you or believed you?
Too many people no longer believe in a Creator God, much less in His Son Jesus Christ or in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit. Our Christian faith is shoved aside as irrelevant and unbelievable. Like Semmelweis’s peers, skeptics today refuse to accept what they cannot see. Their common assumption is that belief in Christ is based on foolish fairy tales.
When we share our testimony about Christ with unbelievers, we often receive a rebuke of scorn, derision, or simple apathy. It’s one of the reasons we recoil so easily from evangelism…we are wounded by rejection.
How do we fight the good fight? How do we offer the life-saving Gospel to a perishing world?
We have to recognize first that salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit. Unless He is working in you and your listeners, nothing you can say will “convince” someone to accept the truth about the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Only the Spirit can convict others of their sins and employ the power of our resurrected Savior to redeem them. Otherwise, they’ll never believe in heaven or a God they can’t see.
Before you share the good news with others, pray for open hearts and ears to ear. Arm yourself in advance with words of hope from Scripture. I encourage you to check out Larry Stamm’s suggestions for ways to counter common rebuttals from unbelievers. Larry, a Christian Jew in evangelistic ministry, has great answers to focus your conversation on Jesus Christ and keep unbelievers from getting off track.3
Remember you have been given precious gifts—eternal life and abundant joy—worth sharing with the world, regardless of personal cost. For those of us who live in the post-Christian West, we often pay only the price of verbal rejection. I can’t imagine how brutally hard it is for persecuted Christians who live in restricted countries, whose lives are threatened when they openly reveal the truth. Pray for them as they face horrific opposition.
Finally, if you feel that no one listens to you, be comforted in knowing that God always hears you. He is with you, to give you wise words and courage to speak up. He opens the hearts of His chosen ones to hear about His grace, no matter how faltering your conversation might be. He listens to your prayers, your disappointments, your laments, your joys…with love. Because of Christ’s gift of salvation, He accepts you.
My personal prayer is to be more intentional in talking about Jesus this week. I hope you’ll pray with me for “divine appointments” where we can give hope and encouragement to the weary people who need Him. You and I have the best news ever about the redeeming victory of Christ—His cleansing power is far above anything we could ever do with a bar of soap!
Jesus—my only way, truth, and life—give me Your boldness to speak about You with others. Equip me with Your wisdom and words so that I may be a trustworthy witness. Make me winsome and joyful so that others will see Your Spirit in me. Open my heart to give Your love to them generously, and open their hearts to accept Your abundant life. In Your holy name, Amen.
Nancy C. Williams is a Christian wife/mom with a writing career spanning more than 40 years in business and journalism. Williams is the author of the novel To Love a Falcon and the devotional book A Crocus in the Desert: Devotions, Stories, and Prayers for Women Experiencing Infertility. Her weekly blogs are featured on Crossmap.com and AriseDaily. To follow Nancy’s posts and news, go to her home page at NancyCWilliams.com and subscribe at the bottom.
© Copyright 2024 Nancy C. Williams (text and photography). Unless otherwise noted, Scripture verses are taken from the New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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1The side effect of extra handwashing is that my fingertips are all wrinkly now. My fingerprints were rejected three times by the FBI when we were preparing paperwork to adopt our son in Siberia. I could take up a life of crime and never be detected, ha ha!
