A Word in Season

Have you ever had someone say just the right thing to you at just the right time? Maybe you were discouraged or sad. Maybe a little frustrated or down on your luck. I had such an experience recently where I was a little discouraged and I happened to be talking to someone on the phone about something else, but he ended up giving me great hope and encouragement. Such an experience is a breath of fresh air!

Interestingly, Christ seemed—and still seems—to have a knack for this type of ministry. He always seems to have the right word at the right time for the right people. The “woman at the well” is one example of this.

But it wasn’t simply by happenstance that Christ engaged in this ministry. In a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah, notice what is true of Christ’s experience (and can be true of ours): “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary” (Isaiah 50:4).

What a wonderful blessing! Christ had the “tongue of the learned” so that He was able to know just what to say to those who were “weary.” And He did it in the right “season.” When someone was down, He had a word of encouragement. When someone was sad, He had a word of cheer. When someone was confused, He had a word of clarification.

And all this can be our experience as well! Thus receiving a word “in season” from Christ, we can pay that forward and share it with someone else who needs to receive the same.

But there’s a little secret to Christ’s experience. Isaiah said that He was given the “tongue of the learned.” But how did He receive that tongue? Isaiah goes on to explain, “He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned.” Notice: the Father was waking Jesus up every morning so that the two of them could have fellowship. The Father, no doubt, encouraged Jesus, and thus Jesus could pay it forward to others.

It bears mentioning, of course, that it was the Father’s initiative that woke Jesus up. It wasn’t as if Christ set His alarm clock, hit the snooze button a few times, and then finally crawled out of bed, eyes glazed over. His Father’s beautiful and melodious voice was His alarm clock and Christ responded to that cheerfully. As Isaiah goes on to write, “The Lord God has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away.”

What about you? Will you respond to Christ’s voice each morning so that you can receive a word of encouragement from Him—thereby equipping yourself to be able to pass along that same word of encouragement to those who are “weary”?

We have two choices: we can either respond to Christ’s initiative or we can be rebellious. Oh, what joy is in store for us if we do respond to that voice “morning by morning.”