My perspective is often far too narrow. Take, for example, the following that literally just happened:
A friend called needing me to bring him a spare key after locking himself out of his house. Happy to be of service, I dropped everything at work to come to his aid. What a good friend I am, right?
Right.
Except every red light stopped me from rescuing my friend. Every bad driver left him stranded a moment longer. The streams of cars blocking my turn held me back. And that made me upset. In a wide variety of creative expressions I muttered and mumbled against these barriers to my good deed. "Get out of my way!" I said in many an ungracious manner.
Red Light
A gentle nudge forced me to pause in my ranting. The thought floated to my conscience: 'In your desire to help your friend, you've forgotten that every vehicle contains a least one other soul, Luke. They likely need grace and compassion and help as well.'
"But they're not my friend," I grumbled. And in that betrayed my veneer of selflessness. That passage from Matthew 5 seems appropriate: I was caring for my friend but no one else... which is something everyone does. I'm a fine friend, sure, but I want to be more than that. I want to be someone who loves and blesses everyone around me. I want to share the love of Christ with everyone.
I read once that the reason we get road rage when someone cuts us off in a car but not while walking is due to a lack of feedback. When it's an impersonal car, we get mad at it and the person controlling the thing. When a person almost trips us accidentally, we exchange a brief apology in a glance. That makes them human and so we are quicker to forgive.
It's fascinating and terrible how easily I convert people into blockades. A similar thing can happen when the person isn't in my group. Like homeschooling. It's so easy for me to put non-homeschoolers in a group I can dismiss. I don't mean to do this. I think homeschooling a great option, but it's just one of many totally viable options. Parents who purposely choose the educational pathway that fits their family and children should not be put in a box of "oh, Thems" like in Gammage Cup.
May we continue to think bigger about ministry. May we, like our Sonlight curriculum encourages us, gain a global perspective that gets our focus off ourselves and out to the world around us. I talk about this a bit in the Christlike Thinking podcast I was a part of recently, if you haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.
Enjoy your weekend, and may God's grace flow from you to everyone around you.
~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester
