Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, October 20, 2014

"Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."¹

"Excuse me, Sir," I heard somebody say. I turned to see who was speaking. I was taken by surprise. A young, reasonably attractive woman was standing behind me.

She paused a moment, just long enough to get my attention, and continued, "Would you like some female company?"

I'd flown into town and had been waiting for a couple of hours in the lobby of a large Eastern hotel to meet an old friend from college days. Suddenly I was awakened out of my day-dreaming. Would I like some female company? An interesting question, to say the least, I mused to myself and then repeated the question out loud to the young woman looking at me.

I was somewhat taken aback by this rather unusual confrontation. However, it didn't take too much insight to realize that this lady of the day happened to be a "lady of the night."

But somehow I sensed as I looked into her eyes a feeling of sadness ... in spite of the brave front. So I introduced myself and asked her for her name. I'll call her Toni. I knew that here was a young lady who was undoubtedly hurting in one way or another. So I began to ask Toni questions. "Why are you in this business?" I queried.

"Because I need the money," she replied.

Undoubtedly her reply was a poor attempt to rationalize what she was doing. I didn't disagree outwardly.

"Well, tell me about yourself," I continued. "Do you have brothers and sisters? What do they do? Do you still live at home? What does your father do? And what about your mother?"

Toni began to open up and we were having an interesting conversation when suddenly she stopped, as if suspicion had caused an instant freeze on her flow of words. She blurted out, "Hey, Dick, wait a minute. Nobody in my whole life has ever talked to me like this before. By the way, who are you? What do you do?"

To be continued...

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please give me an understanding heart and be willing to listen to a person—and not judge or reject them because of their particular lifestyle and behavior. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Colossians 4:6 (NIV).

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