What If?

What if I asked more questions and gave fewer opinions?

What if I understood that God’s love is more about my character than my comfort?

What if I killed depression and emptiness by giving myself away, not analyzing myself all day?

What if I lost sleep over Darfur, the “strangers” I pass by each day, and the way I have turned the gospel into something easy to stomach?

What if I really believed Jesus will provide for me like the lilies and the sparrows?

What if I stopped waiting to do something “great” for God and did the small things I refuse every day?

What if I saw interruptions as opportunities to love?

What if I stop asking “what if” and see what is going on around me right now?

…

A trusted friend tells me I am a “global thinker, big idea” type of person. She says, politely, that maybe my strength is not logistics and day-to-day stuff. Deep down, I take it as a compliment. But I’m also afraid of what it means.

Jeff says “people are more important than ideas”. I think about the people I am missing while I’m “busy” daydreaming about a better future, a world full of love, a Kingdom that has finally come. If you’re feeling like me, maybe we can pray this prayer together today.

Father,
Help me to see the people that you will place all around me today. These are my neighbors, and you said that it all comes down to loving You and them.
But I call them “interruptions”; I call them “strangers”. Most of the time, I just don’t see them. I am consumed with self. Help myself die today, so that You might live through me and give life to others through me.

And when I fail today, Father, give me a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Break my heart in the kind of way that makes a loving Father give up His Perfect Son for a selfish fool like me. Through this pain, help me minister to the pain of others in a way that shows how You ache for them.

I may complain about the pain and emptiness that I feel, but I know You are shaping me into something so very different from what I am today – something that will attract others to you. On my own, I neither care about my neighbors nor have anything to offer them if I did care. But you can change my heart, and I ask that you start right now.

Amen.

With love,

a young shepherd.