Shut up! No One Is Listening!

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If there is one thing that diverse experiences with people have taught me, it is that I need to keep quiet. Talk is cheap, and people are not moved by it anymore. People want actions and executions. So, you, too, need to shut your mouth and begin showing us your ways. And if you don’t shut youth mouth, we won’t listen to you still, yet we will be keen to watch what you do. So it is up to you to choose your hard. 

“What’s up, Mr Cleaver? “It is just the third day of the month of love. Why are you pouring the wrath of God unmixed with mercy before doomsday?” And more questions could be ringing in your mind. There is nothing to cause alarm. I am safe, she is safe, and all my friends are equally putting their tools together, honing their crafts, ready to bring change and earn clean money. I hope you are well, too…. If not, the best is yet to come, so hold on, cheer up and wait for God’s time as you do your best with current opportunities. All these said and done, I now remind you one thing: “Shut up! No one is listening!”

The hard reality of action being louder than talk is quite consistent in human relations. Probably, Christ suffered from it during His earthly ministry, and he ended up making a sobering statement that will haunt everyone who offers lip service:

 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ [NKJV Matthew 7:21-23]

Professors of piety are many, yet the world is longing to see the Character of the man of Calvary. We have countries where everyone is religious and loves Jesus (at least according to their sayings), yet corruption and lots of nonsensical stuff are sown and harvested in bounties. There is no clearer evidence of lip service than in such occurrences. 

If you ask someone their name, they will tell you and add the “above all, I love Jesus as my personal Saviour” suffix. What purpose does that add to their introduction? And before we go further, I don’t have a problem with you or anyone who is making their allegiance clear because I, too, prefer to have my Bible on hand instead of keeping it safe in the bag, and I have some great testimonies that a hard copy Bible has contributed to. Continue telling the world, what you stand for, but remember everyone is carrying a Bible, and many people have auto-generated that pious suffix in their bios. 

There are lots of good testimonies that inconsistent actions and culture have betrayed. People are tired of hearing the niceties on lips and want to see niceties in shoes. Another illustration from the good book may persuade a noisy hornbill who insists on making noise around. 

There was a time when John sent his disciples to Jesus to seek direct confirmation if he was the one they had been waiting for.

Things were not working as expected, or there were some apparent delays. The detail is a whole topic for another day. Here is the conversation: 

Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ” And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” [NKJV Luke 7:18-23]

The context of this text is the great works (not words) of Jesus. In the preceding verse, Jesus raised the widow’s son at Nain. His great works made the people declare, “A great prophet has risen up among us”; and “God has visited His people.” Probably this is why John sent his disciples to get confirmation from Jesus. By then, John was jailed. They had a definite assignment; to go to Jesus and ask him “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ” 

This question could be simply answered by word of mouth. But how did Jesus attend to this assignment? And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

He began with actions and basically helped them formulate a report on what he was doing. He showed his work that was a direct reflection of the Ministry of the Messiah as was prophesied by Isaiah: 

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,

Because the Lord has anointed Me

To preach good tidings to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives,

And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,

And the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn,

[NKJV Isaiah 61:1-2]

What we say only has power when it explains what we do. But for many, there is a huge chasm between what is said and what is done, and that is where the power is lost, and our testimonies are confounded. There is a lot of noise in the world today. The self-proclaimed Messiahs, those who love Jesus as their personal saviour, those who want to inherit the kingdom, and the list is endless, but all these noisy folks have characters diametrically opposite what they keep voicing loudly.

 In all our relationships—romantic, work, contractual, or normal friendships—it is what we do and not what we say that matters. The only evidence that some power is flowing in your life is what you do more than others, not what you say more than others. Our false prophets, politicians, philosophers, and all the people who have something to say are proving to us, in verity, that people need to shut up and start doing. 

Shut up! No one is listening! But don’t forget this: People are watching… Let them see it, then seek an explanation from you. Blessings all the way.