11.01.06
Can You be Mistaken for Jesus?
Contributed by Dee Andrews
A few years ago a group of
salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago . They had assured their wives
that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s
dinner.
In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples.
Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed
to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
All but
one.
He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings,
and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand
had been overturned.
He told his buddies to go on without him, waved
goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home
destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the
terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he
did.
The 16 year old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying,
tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time
helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no
one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on
the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and
helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had
become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another
basket.
When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the
girl,
"Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you
okay?"
She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we
didn’t spoil your day too badly." As the salesman started to walk away,
the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister….." He paused
and turned to look back into those blind eyes.
She continued, "Are you
Jesus?"
He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made
his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing
about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"
Do people mistake you for Jesus?
That’s our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot
tell the difference as we live and interact with a world (shopping, working,
reacting to others that are serving us) that is blind to His love, life and
grace.
If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He
would.
Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to
church.
It’s actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.
You
are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by
a fall. He
stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill
called
Calvary and paid in full for our damaged
fruit.
Let us live like we are worth the price He
paid.
Author Unknown