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“Be the One”
By Faith Brown
Imagine if we all actually
acted like Jesus? Imagine if we were nice and showed compassion to everyone?
What could happen? We shouldn’t wait for others to do things; we
should rise up and do whatever it is that needs to be done. I came upon this
conclusion once as I was walking out of a meeting for yearbook.
It was lunchtime and I was
walking to where all of my friends usually eat. In the hallway, I came
across a fellow peer who was eating lunch alone. I had known this guy from a
club I was apart of and knew that he had trouble fitting in with the rest of
the group. He has always been left out of everything and some people
wouldn’t even notice if he was in school or not. I always felt sorry for the
guy but never did anything to make him feel included. I would simply just
stand by and watch. Anyways, while I was walking by him I felt like I should
sit next to him and talk with him for awhile. However, like all the times
before, I just said “hi” and kept walking on by. While I was in the
stairwell, I said a simple prayer to God saying, “God, please help him.” The
moment I said it I instantly felt God say to me, “Well, why don’t you?”
BAM. Gosh God, that hurt.
I was instantly convicted.
But you know what? Like always, God was right. Why didn’t I help him? Why
wasn’t I the one to include him and be nice? I prayed because I wanted God
to send him blessings and friends and help him with anything he was going
through, but God was asking me why didn’t I help him and bless him. After
this revelation, I told myself that I would do my best to make him feel
included whenever I saw him next. Unfortunately, I never had the
opportunity, for this guy moved out of town.
The truth is, we always want
someone else to do the dirty work. We always want someone else to go help
that loner or bless that homeless person. We want someone else to go witness
the Gospel to our friends and family. But, have you ever thought that maybe
God is sending you to that person? Maybe someone is praying for their friend
to be blessed and you are the one who is supposed to bless them!
This reminds me of a parable
Jesus used in Luke 10:30. The parable tells a story of a man who was beaten
and left on the side of the road. While he was lying there half-dead, two
“good” people passed by him offering no help. They probably felt ashamed or
thought “Someone else will help him.” This “someone” just so happened to be
a Samaritan. Samaritans were particularly hated in Jesus’ time period, and
it makes the story more interesting because they would probably have been
the last person you would suspect to help a wounded stranger. The point of
the parable is to show people that everyone needs compassion and mercy.
Don’t be like the priest and Levite who passed by the wounded man. Stop
waiting for others to witness the Gospel, for others to help those who are
broken, for others to give. Rise up and be the one.
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