Transcript
When it comes to relating to the people that are around you and being part of God's work of love and grace, I want to speak to a weakness that I have and I'm sure I'm not alone. I tend to be a very project-oriented person. I know what I want to accomplish everyday. I know where I need to be. I know what I need to do and I want to do things as fast as I can do them and get on to the next thing.
Head Down and Moving Fast
And when I'm out of the loft where I live, that means I can be head down, moving as fast as I can, unfriendly, way to self-focused human being and maybe miss a lot of opportunities to incarnate God's love and God's grace to the people that around me.
I mean, there are people that I see every day. Those are opportunities. How about treating those people like they're people? How about engaging people in conversation? How about getting to know people's names? How about looking for opportunities to assist people, to help people, to do good even when good isn't being done to you?
We had an amazing experience of a very aggressive, angry neighbor that was really making our life difficult. And one afternoon, Luella, my wife, was making cinnamon rolls and she suggested that I take a plate of those rolls over to that angry neighbor who had made our lives so hard. I thought she was nuts. I stood at the front door hoping that a dog would come and I could feed them those roles because I didn't want to give them to this angry person, but it was the right thing to do.
A Knock on Our Door
We just began to look for every opportunity to do good toward this lady who had made our lives difficult. That was the beginning. Several months down the road, we got a knock on our door one day. When I answered the door, she was there and I thought, "Oh my goodness, she's just going to cause more trouble."
She said, "Can I come in and talk?" I said, "Sure." I was nervous. I had nothing but negative thoughts at that moment. And she sat down, she began to tear up and she said, "I've made a mess on my life. I've driven away all my friends. There are only two people in the world that I know for sure love me. It's you and Luella, and I need help."
Who knows where a moment of kindness will go? Who knows how ready that person is to respond to God's love? How about slowing down, looking people in the face, being kind, engaging them in conversation, treating them like human beings and looking for opportunities to do good?
