YOU ARE VALUABLE
11th Nov 2015
Jesus had a unique way of giving such attention and value to those He met that each encounter was life changing. He spoke to the woman at the well in Samaria with such a complete absence of judgement that her life was transformed, and also that of many of the folk in her city. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” In John 8, there is the encounter with a woman caught in the very act of adultery, and Jesus says, “Has no one condemned you? Then neither do I condemn you?”
I have been challenged by reading a book by Michael Mayne, “This Sunrise of Wonder.” It has not been an easy read, as the author is far more learned and intellectual than I am, but I have persisted, been challenged and stirred. He writes about how the disciples watched Jesus, “as he encountered damaged people, sinful and perplexed people, and told them they were loved..... Despite all life’s unpredictable and sometime cruel nature. We are not to doubt that we are loved.”
Michael Mayne challenges us to give attention to everyone we meet, without judgement, without hidden agendas, just to listen and to give time without trying to fix them or to make value judgements of them in our hearts. When we give value to those we meet and open our hearts to them, just like Jesus, we are likely to see God at work in their lives doing things that we could never do.
He quotes Helen Oppenheimer: “Everyone can agree that Michelangelo is irreplaceable, but when God says of a drunken tramp, ‘but I loved that one. I did not want him lost.’ God’s other children must try to see the point. We should see it after all, if the tramp’s mother said it. What belief in a heavenly Father requires is the exercise of imagination to see each others irreplaceability as well as our own.”
Let us see everyone as God sees them, give them our time, our love and let them know they are of great value in our eyes also.
by Charles Sibthorpe
