.....attended

And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul Acts 16:14

The Ethiopian needed Philip to open the Scriptures to him. In Philippi we meet a woman whose story shows who does the deeper opening: the Lord Himself, working on the heart.

Paul had come to Macedonia after a vision of a man pleading, "Come over and help us." Yet when he reached Philippi, there seemed to be no synagogue and no crowd waiting. On the Sabbath he went out to the riverside, where a few women met for prayer, and sat down to speak with them. Among them was Lydia, a businesswoman from Thyatira who traded in purple cloth, one of the most costly goods of her day. She was successful, independent and already a worshipper of the true God.

You might ask, "If she was already worshipping God, what was left to change?" That is exactly the quiet test in her story. Lydia could easily have been content with the faith she had, comfortable and respectable. Instead she listened. Luke tells us two things happened together: the Lord opened her heart, and she paid attention. God did the opening; Lydia did not close the door. Her longing for God, faithfully kept at a riverside prayer meeting, had been His work in her all along.

Ellen White describes that same hidden work in every seeking heart: "Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness, is an evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts" Steps to Christ, p. 26. Lydia's hunger was not her own achievement. It was grace drawing her toward the Saviour she had not yet met.

And grace did not stop at her heart. Lydia and her household were baptized, and she urged Paul and his companions to stay in her home. The heart God had opened became a home opened for His work, and the first church in Europe began to gather there.

The Ethiopian teaches us to welcome the help God sends to explain His Word. Lydia teaches us that before anyone speaks, God is already at work within us, and that our part is simply to listen when He opens the heart.