My daughter got a special prize this Monday when she went into school. To receive the prize all she had to do was say a predesignated word and, voila, instant winner. The word was given to all the children in the class, well their parents. If the parents had read all the way through the newsletter then they would find instructions to have the child repeat the word to the teacher the next day and receive their prize.

There is a lot of information coming at us. Constant cacophony of bells and whistles that overload our daily lives. They call for our attention and break our concentration. All of them vying for primacy of place. Between 24-hour news channels and endless scrolling feeds, we can “like,” “down vote,” “heart,” and meme our days away and still be out of the loop. With snail mail, email, chat, text, phone calls, Zoom calls, Teams calls, and meetings it would seem that there is no shortage of ways to communicate. But is any of it getting through? The teacher giving away a prize is reacting to a natural desire to know “is any of this sinking in?”

Hearing the Word of God can, absolutely, become just another voice in the crowd. One of the many teachings taking your time. And like so many other voices it might be easier to silence that feed. After all, who wants to burden themselves on purpose (Gal 6:2). There is an app that gives speakers three minutes or less to be entertaining, and if they’re not people can swipe up and a new person is on the screen. What’s more is there is a seemingly infinite reserve of this content. Swipe, swipe, swipe until one is entertained. The Bible says to “be patient, and bear with one another” (Eph 4:2), swipe.

If you’ve made it this far into the blog then you probably agree with me that the Word of God isn’t just another voice in the crowd. It is The Word. The guiding principles, examples, and salvation needed by all people to live their best life now and have eternal life. There have always been competing voices and ideas to clutter the Truth, the Way and the Life. Sure, maybe today the means of communication are insidious but God has never relied on means of communication to spread His message. God uses us. We are the billboards on the roadside. When we exhibit a life in Christ, practicing what Christ preached, we are living testaments. This is how God intended it. That the world would know Christ by our love. Our faith is not a faith that can simply be thought about; it must be practiced. Christianity must be lived. In the living and in the doing the immutable message is made known: Christ is king.

And, at the end, when we meet our God, we get to share the message that is available to all: “Jesus is LORD,” and receive our prize.