Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Tanya Wilmuth.

So today I'm going to talk about something that I haven't actually talked about on this podcast before, but my conversations with my mom have changed over the years. What used to be

pretty me-centered, like calling her for advice and comfort, encouragement, maybe some help with

the kids, has become something else completely. It's something harder and in a strange way.

It's something that's quite a bit deeper. See, my mom doesn't remember our phone calls.

For the past 10 years or so, we've watched a slow decline in her short-term memory.

I'm not sure what to call it, and honestly, I'm not sure even naming it change as much.

But what I do know is that the give and take that make a conversation feel like a conversation,

meaning the questions, the answers, the shared excitement, the shared burdens, well, that is mostly gone now.

I ask her what she did today. She doesn't remember. I tell her about my kids and my job. She

forgets within the same minute and we go over it again.

And when we hang up, I usually wonder if she even remembers that we spoke.

And I think the answer is usually no.

But here's what I've been thinking on lately.

I still need to call her.

I still want to call her. But it's not because it fills up her cup like it does mine. It just doesn't work like that anymore. But I call her because when we're talking, she's so happy. She enjoys it in the few minutes that we're on the phone. And I call her because I want a relationship with her, even when it's not the same as it was before. I know that some of you don't have that opportunity anymore, and I don't take it lightly.

So why am I telling you this? Well, it's not for sympathy, but because I think it kind of frames the

conversation that we're having today and the heart of Luke 18 better than a lot of other things we could say.

If you only talk to someone in order to receive something from that conversation, would that be a vibrant relationship?

Would that be connected? Would that be life-giving? Or is there something deeper than asking for more? Is there something

deeper to our conversations than just what we can get out of that other person? So in Luke chapter 18,

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