I found that I needed a new cell phone – an upgraded one that will accept the apps I need to use for the translation of speech to text and one that will work with my hearing aids. I am sure we have all gone through this researching, reviewing, and testing out of phones. It is very time consuming. Both my husband, Neil, and I have spent hours between reading reviews and traveling to the stores to see how the new model feels in our hands. If you have done this you, too, probably also found that the phones are secured to a desk and are inaccessible for the ‘feel’ test.

I haven’t purchased the phone yet. I’ve spent hours on the research and made a decision but now I need a specific type of case which is taking even more research. I thought to myself, “This is getting crazy,” but the price compels me to do the research because I can’t just toss the phone out if it doesn’t meet my requirements.

The more I thought about the amount of time I am spending on this phone purchase the more I have been considering how, when we mention Jesus and His life-sustaining gifts to others, more people aren’t curious enough to take the time to research faith. Not faith in gravity, or faith in the heat of a fire, but faith in the very one who created us – God. 

I know people who have spent days and weeks researching what car to buy, which is the perfect mother-of-the-bride dress, what gift is best for so and so for Christmas, and yet they have not spent the most minimal amount of time considering Jesus. And, salvation through Jesus is even free. 

It hurts my soul to think that I know so very many people who have heard of Jesus, that maybe even have entered a church and listened to a sermon, but don’t have the curiosity to consider what happens when they die. Do they just shrug off the thought and hope they will find out then? That is not a good plan.  Would we ever do that with a $1,500 phone? Just buy it without testing and wait until later to see if it really works? I doubt that any of us would.

So, I am trying to figure out why some very smart people will spend hours on social media listening to every crazy voice out there (whether they are a fan or foe of the source) and yet they are not the least bit interested in the destination of their own soul. Not even willing to discuss it or simply research their reason for being here on Earth and then what happens when they are on Earth no longer. It makes my heart break for them. It makes my heart break even more for those who have never even heard of my Savior Jesus.

The time spent on social media might just be an avoidance of reality. I know many of those videos and even TV shows are termed ‘reality’ but every one of us know those things do not happen in our lives so whose reality is it? It is not ours or the actors’ reality. 

Our reality, in our own little space in this world, is that each of us were designed especially by the loving hands of God Almighty to be on Earth at a very specific time and in a very specific place to do work to glorify Him. So, how can so very many people have no desire to know who He is and what they are here to do? 

Those many questions and lack of answers seem to be compelling me to become more courageous in my declarations to others of my trust and faith in God and the salvation of Jesus which determines where I am for eternity – in heaven. One of the things that I noticed when I was working at the Ocean City Tabernacle was that as the preachers and evangelists came nearer to the end of their lives they became more forceful in their preaching – more intense – as if they felt an urgency to get on with God’s work while they still had the ability.

I might be in that position now. I know too many people who do not have the hope that Jesus has given me – the assurance that I am His. I am praying that God will not only give me the opportunities to share my faith with others but that He will give me the words to say to entice them to at least be curious to find out who Jesus is. Every hour of my time spent working for God is well worth it.

ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.