Relationships and Random Kindness

I'm sitting in Peet's coffee on a Saturday morning waiting for a friend to arrive. As I wait, I'm engaged in one of my favorite pasttimes: people-watching. I know its rather nosey, but when I see people walk in for their morning cup of caffiene, I'm astutely aware that each of these people have a story as unique as their DNA.

As a pastor, I'm constantly thinking about how our individual stories intersect with God's Story - the unfolding drama of his love affair with mankind. Sometimes I wish I had the ability of Jesus to be able to see into the recesses of a person's heart so as to know exactly how to encourage them. However, while I am a human being like Jesus, I don't have the God-thing going for me. Therefore, I am bound by the need to engage in relationships in order to befriend someone on this deeper level.

The need for building relationships runs against the grain of our "efficiency-centered" worldview. From a human perspective, caring enough to build relationships is not effecient for several reasons. For one thing, time is a factor. Investing in another person relationally takes time and patience - requiring much more effort than drowning our hours away in front of a computer or TV screen. A second factor making relationships inefficient is the limit of our own capacities. A friend of mind describes this reality in terms of Legos. As finite humans, we have a limited number of connectors. Once our capacity to connect fills up, we simply don't have room for new connections - at least not deep ones.

Yet I think this is OK. Jesus modeled this for us in that while He was Almighty God, He voluntarily limited Himself as a human. Jesus only had a handful of really close friends. Yet, He multiplied His ministry through that handful of friends to the extent that 2000 years later, 2.3 billion people claim allegience to Jesus. This is good news for us in our finiteness! Jesus said that we are His body and that each of us plays a vital role in relationally investing in those for whom He gave His life!

Don't be discouraged if you don't feel "efficient" enough to have a million deep relationships. Just make sure you're loving well those already in your life - and be open to God bringing more along in His timing. Look for little ways to bless those who God puts in your path. Secular culture calls this "random acts of kindness". Followers of Jesus see it as "divine appointments" - believing that no encounter with another human being is random.

Even as I write this blog from my cell phone, the friend I was supposed to meet has not shown up. Yet, it's no accident that I'm here. What you don't know is that the writing of this blog has transpired over the course of more than an hour. In that time, I ran into some old classmates from Bible College that just "happened" to be cruising through town. Then a "random" lady named Brenda walked up to my table a few minutes later and said she was a Christian and that she felt God had laid a message on her heart that she felt compelled to tell me. I invited her to tell me and she spoke the following:

"I feel that God wants you to know that you are going to be a spiritual shepherd to many people - and that God sees the way you've served Him with joy, even through difficult times. He is going to use you to rebuild the broken lives of others and to lead many into a deeper understanding of Jesus. God wants you to know that He notices your service and desires to richly reward you. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but I felt that God wanted me to tell you that." I was blown away by this woman's words. She doesn't even know me, yet steps out of her comfort zone to encourage me. She had no clue that I'm about to take on a new role as the point leader of our church. After 14 years in youth ministry and heading into the simultaneous thrill and insecuruty of leading a church - her words could not have made MORE sense!

So I sit here at Peet's, aware more than ever that even when an appointment fails to show up, I was here for a reason. I'm not typically one of those types who places much credence in so-called "messages from God". But this one was biblical, delivered humbly and precise to the situation at hand. I thank God for strengthening my own faith today through Brenda. She was His mouthpiece in this divine appointment - reminding me that nothing is ever random with God! I'm thankful that the fear of inefficiency didn't stop her from stepping out in faith to encourage a "random" guy blogging on his cell phone at Peet's coffee on a Saturday morning. Now go BE that divine appointment in someone else's day!