As I’ve been writing and rereading my recent posts a point that I hadn’t made keeps coming to mind: we often put ourselves as the center of everything going on. Much like the sun is the to earth we place ourselves as the center of the universe and don’t leave much room for God. What if even half of the time we put God at the center of what we have going on in our lives?
I’m sure that some of you are wondering what I mean on this, so let me explain. As a Christian we are to going out into the world and making disciples. A lot of times we’re so busy doing the things that we have to do to make it through the day that we miss a ton of opportunities to be a light in the world for HIM! Let’s think about something that almost everyone in the world has done, let’s walk in the front door of Wal-Mart for a minute. As you walk in what do you see? More than likely if your Wal-Mart is like ours in Norwalk you’ll probably have 2-3 people leaving, more people coming in along side of you, people in the aisles in front of you, a greeter, and some people checking out. Count those people in your mind and take a guess on how many of them know God in a personal way. Now, walk in a little further and start your way towards the toy section. How many more people have you seen? How often have we all been on such a mission of our own that as we walked through the store we almost ran over someone or just ignored everyone else around. Here is my challenge to you: next time smile at half of the people you see. That is right, I said just smile.
What did that smile do you may ask, right? Well, it’s just possible that you might have brightened someone’s day just by smiling at them. Maybe you showed one of them that not everyone in the world is hateful like they’d thought…maybe you gave them a glimmer of hope in a horrible day…and maybe, just maybe, God’s love for them shown through your eyes. Did you realize that just a smile could have that much power? How did this happen, because you were willing to move out of the center of your own world and allow God to be there instead. Now try something different the next time you go: hold a door for someone, help someone reach something they are too short to reach or can’t bend over to get, or just let them get in front of you in line because they only have 2-3 items while you have a cart load. No, it may not work for everyone, but even if you reach just one person in your 1-2-3 trips this week to Wal-Mart, was it worth it?
You see, it’s just that simple. I didn’t ask you to pay for their groceries, discipline their rowdy kids, or anything like that – I just asked you to start with a smile. In just that simple gesture you just might give someone hope that doesn’t have it. You may give them a glimmer of the love that God has for them. I know it’s not easy to do all the time as we all have so many things to do and places to be…but will getting out of the middle be worth it if we were able to touch someone’s life for Him with something as simple as a smile? To me, it’s worth the effort!
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