BLOG 11.15.19. “THERE ARE NO ORDINARY PEOPLE”
I want to continue to focus on the reality that the Christ’s primary encounter with the community of men and women whom he came to seek and to save is through people such as you and me, in our daily places of occupation and daily routines. If the Spirit of Jesus lives in us, then his love and compassion for the bewildered, lost, happy pagans, “publicans and sinners”, … along with all the difficult and hostile persons we meet along the way … is present to them in you and me.
It is one thing for scores/hundreds of us to sit in a Sunday worship service and hear reports from our missionary partners across the globe, … and to fail to compute the reality that each of us is in daily confrontation with a mission field that is huge. If we are sensitive, listening, caring, and incarnating Christ’s love, it is through the church that the Holy Trinity encounters the world Jesus came to seek and to save. It is often in unexpected conversations (in what I call curbstone evangelism, or coffee cup evangelism) that we become agents of the love and gentleness of Jesus Christ.
This possibility reminds me of an essay by the noted British author, C. S. Lewis, entitled: “There Are No Ordinary People; You Have Never Talked to a Mere Mortal” which I share below:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.
It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people.”
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… to be continued in future Blogs. Pass the word along if you find these encouraging.
