Where have you learned some of your most important life lessons? Like many of you I have had a lot of formal educators, teachers and a few informal mentors who have taught me a great deal. I owe each of them a portion of my success and my understanding about life itself.
One person who I met close to 40 years ago planted a seed in my mind and ultimately in my heart. When I was thinking about this today, I’m not sure he even knows that he did. My friends name is Phil and he owned a business that routinely took him to places that he wouldn’t normally visit. There were many times he would need to go to a local bar to deliver, pick up or repair his equipment there. I recall him sharing a comment years ago when someone had challenged him on how a Christian man, as he professed himself to be, would ever go to so many bars? Wasn’t that behavior a disconnect to who he professed to be? His response, as I recall it, was something along the lines that the bars were an environment where he had a ripe opportunity to share and live out his Christian faith. Perhaps not always overtly through a testimony, but always through his upbeat, charismatic and caring personality, and consistently by how he treated his customers with honesty, integrity and quality service. Phil met his clients and their customers where they were… Wherever that took him.
The more I thought about this today it made me wonder how many of us, who in all aspects of our lives live a strong Christian walk, yet, shield ourselves from non-Christians and certainly non-Christian places? We worship with Christians, we are in small groups with those in our faith, and at times attend Christian events with those like us. Those are all important to do. We may avoid many places Christians wouldn’t normally go for good reason. It may understandably be to protect ourselves or loved ones, which I certainly understand. But that aside… when is the last time you met someone where they were; when they were their most vulnerable? When they may have needed someone like you, the most?
In the Bible there are many examples where Jesus walked with the sinners and even sought them out. He didn’t just preach at them as much as He experienced their fear, worry and pain right along with them. Doing so allowed a sinner to see Jesus at His most loving and caring and as an extension of His own Father, God.
In Mark 2:17 it says….
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
We often think our Lord and Savior only resides in church, heaven, a mountain top or where His people gather. We don’t expect Him to be in the prisons, on the streets with the homeless, in a half-way house, or a neighborhood bar. We don’t typically seek Him out in our schools, places of employment or when we are immersed in our favorite hobbies and pastimes with others. The fact is He is in all those places too. So why aren’t we?
This week I challenge you to be open to God whispering to you to meet Him in that one unusual place. Maybe it’s at the grocery store, or at your favorite restaurant. Maybe it’s that one person who is on the street who you know from looking in their eyes needs you today, right now. It just might be that another person who has been vividly on your mind for some time now. I pray that whatever type of connection you decide to make with whoever crosses your path, that you will feel God working through you.
Remember, you may be the only representative of our God that person ever sees on this earth.
Today’s song is Danny Gokey’s “More Than You Think I Am”. I love this song for its lyrics that reinforce what I’ve said here today. I also really appreciate that Danny Gokey himself chose to use the American Idol platform he was given to profess his faith in God. It was much more than a personal win for him, it was an eternal one. He used the door that God had opened for him and turned it in to an experience where he could truly reach millions, right where they were.
It’s our turn to do the same.
“The fact is, he is in all those places too- so why aren’t we?!” That is the best comment of the day!