Painted Heart

This ‘loving people’ thing?

  We all want to do it.  We are all called to do it.  We have the best mentor, leader, teacher there ever was and ever will be. I am all in,  almost all of the time.

You see I try and predict the moments and measure my success. But fortunately for the entire human race; I cannot read the mind of God and He works outside the bonds of time and space and my schedule.

Therefore, He grabs minutes where I least expect and are less than planned.

I forget every single opportunity is a holy opportunity and every single person is a God built person, including the guy that took my candy.

This was one of those times I almost missed Him.  I truly hope He is not counting as I am in the thousands now for missed opportunities.

We sat down at a musical.  I was so looking forward to this.  I had no children in this production and no tuxedo to find and no call time to worry about and no treats to bring.  It was glorious.

Honestly my only worry was falling asleep.  I tend to do that in dark rooms these days.  But I came prepared, I had a full bag of suck on candy.  It never disappoints.  I opened it up wide and watched how my new neighbor, who I had technically never met, reached in.

I realized one bag of candy probably looked a bit too much for one person;  perhaps he was doing me a favor?  I will admit I had to adjust. I can believe a God who fits into a universe.  I rarely look for Him between theater seats. 

You see it is not just our actions.  It is our reactions.  It is not just our words; it is our wonder.  Finding Him where and when we were not looking.  This was not some weirdo taking my candy.  This was one of His looking for conversation…  and candy.

We had a lovely discussion.  We talked about who we would be looking for on stage.  The “talented kids of today” as we dubbed them. It was grand.

I never delivered the gospel.  I have no idea if the candy man was a believer;  but I felt closer to Jesus by embracing kindness while someone was close to me. I don’t look at the Gospels and see complicated;  I see compassion.

People don’t remember our words;   they remember what and who they felt around us.