Is Anyone Out There? Does Anyone Care?

The story is told of a man who lived his life as an professed atheist. One day one of his students asked him, "Doctor, how would you define life?"

The professor responded, "Life is going at night to the edge of the ocean. Standing there in your loneliness, you cry out, “Is anyone out there? Does anyone care?' Just before dawn, hope rises, when you hear a voice. Then you are thrown back into despair when you realize that the voice you hear is that of a drowning man.”

The atheist professor concluded by saying, “What is life? It is calling out in your loneliness and despair for someone to care.”

Is anyone there? Does anyone care? Have you been there? I think that every honest person will say, Yes, I’ve been there.

And the Scripture records that even those with the strongest faith have uttered that same cry! The prophet Elijah cried out in despair, "O wretched man that I am!" Martin Luther once cried out, “My God, art thou dead?”

The Hebrew children asked this question during their Babylonian captivity. And Isaiah wrote, “This is what the Lord says, ‘In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you,” reminding them, and reminding you and me that our lives are ruled not by chance, or fate, but by God’s gracious providence.

Friend, if you sometimes wonder if anyone is out there, or if you wonder if anyone cares, join the crowd with me, and with so many of my friends here on the streets of Skid Row.

So many here in the inner city cry out in their despair for someone to hear them, for someone to care. Will you help us share with them the glorious truth that God cares! He cared enough to send His Only Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for our sins.

Blessings,

Willie Jordan (Mrs. Fred Jordan)