Changemakers
Paul was on his way home at the end of a day working at church with our 5 hard-working summer students. He had almost cleared an intersection with a four-way stop when he felt the sudden jarring impact of metal on metal, shaking him so violently that his sunglasses broke. His trailer had been demolished, and the back of his car damaged enough to render it undrivable. A woman driving a truck filled with her family of children, and almost home, entered the familiar intersection too soon. She was utterly remorseful and took full responsibility, but Paul urged her to reassure her children and make sure that they were okay. Her husband came quickly and helped pull the wreckage of the trailer onto their property.
It was our weekly small group meeting when he came home late for dinner. Beth, a young woman at the table, without hesitating offered one of her family's vehicles for his use. An insurance company will provide a rental car, but the real gift was her heart. She was "with us."
So this morning as I sat on our sunporch in gratitude, while meditating and reading, these words from Dallas Willard's book, Renovation of the Heart (p.188-189,) resonated:
"...every contact with a human being should be one of goodwill, and respect, with a readiness to acknowledge, make way for, or assist the other in suitable ways."
Willard goes on to describe his father's habit of always raising his hand in greeting to other drivers on the roads of rural Georgia in the late 1930s. He mentioned that he also habitually acknowledged people as he passed them on the sidewalk.
After describing our world, desperately and relentlessly driven by a need for approval in less healthy ways, Willard writes pragmatically, "This is the world we now have."
But he urges his readers to "make a start where we are," and, "to think of specific ways grace and truth can begin to change it."
For all of us, this is something we can do and be. We can be Change-Makers.
It was our weekly small group meeting when he came home late for dinner. Beth, a young woman at the table, without hesitating offered one of her family's vehicles for his use. An insurance company will provide a rental car, but the real gift was her heart. She was "with us."
So this morning as I sat on our sunporch in gratitude, while meditating and reading, these words from Dallas Willard's book, Renovation of the Heart (p.188-189,) resonated:
"...every contact with a human being should be one of goodwill, and respect, with a readiness to acknowledge, make way for, or assist the other in suitable ways."
Willard goes on to describe his father's habit of always raising his hand in greeting to other drivers on the roads of rural Georgia in the late 1930s. He mentioned that he also habitually acknowledged people as he passed them on the sidewalk.
After describing our world, desperately and relentlessly driven by a need for approval in less healthy ways, Willard writes pragmatically, "This is the world we now have."
But he urges his readers to "make a start where we are," and, "to think of specific ways grace and truth can begin to change it."
For all of us, this is something we can do and be. We can be Change-Makers.
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