I’m Just Telling Everyone

“After seeing Him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this Child.”  (Luke 2:17, NLT).

The TV commercial caught my attention. One gal is on a mountaintop, yelling at the top of her lungs to another gal on a distant mountain. The message she’s belting out over the chasm? She’s telling her that when she needs new eyeglasses, she should go to a particular vision store.

“How could you see that I wear glasses from such a distance?” the hearer yells back with equal volume.

“I couldn’t,” comes the loud reply. “I’m just telling everyone.”

Then she turns her head and, with determination and enthusiasm, shouts, “Hey! When you need a new pair of glasses . . . .” 

It’s a Vision Works ad that first appeared in 2022, but it pops up from time to time. 

Why did this ad capture my focus? Three reasons: 1) The volume of her voice and the sense of urgency and excitement she conveyed; 2) She was not singling out people, but was telling “everyone” – just in case they needed her message, and 3) To climb a mountain and then do all that yelling, she must have been extraordinarily happy with how she was treated – and with her new glasses.

The woman in the ad reminded me of Bill Gaither’s song with these lyrics: “Get all excited, go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is King, get all excited, go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is still the King of Kings.”

I also recalled the song lyrics “I’ll tell the world how Jesus saved me, and how He gave me a life brand new; And I know that if you trust Him, that all He gave me, He’ll give to you.” (There are several more verses to this song which is entitled, “I’ll Tell the World That I’m a Christian.” Words and music by Baynard L. Fox).

As Christians, we have a message far more important than where to shop for your next pair of eyeglasses, don’t we? 

But how often do we go out of our way to tell the Gospel, which means good news? (Indeed, it is very good news). Are we conveying the message with enough bold confidence so that people can hear us? Do we declare it with urgency and excitement? And, finally, do we communicate it with both conviction and joy?

Remember how the Bethlehem shepherds told everyone on the first Christmas? Let’s be like them. And let’s be more like the woman in the Vision Works commercial: “I’m just telling everyone!” 

A Wisconsin native, Lauri Lemke Thompson appreciates living in the lovely Ozark Mountains in Branson, Missouri. She is active in Christian Women’s Connection (Stonecroft) and the Ozarks Chapter of the American Christian Writers. Her two books, Hitting Pause and Pressing Forward, are collections of her columns, articles, and devotions. Her bimonthly column appears in the Branson Globe newspaper.