Previous Reflections
REFLECTIONS
September 10th, 2023For you created my inmost being; / you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Psalms 139:13-14
People
Lots and lots of them everywhere, each one a story. They are a fascination, the stories I mean. God’s imagination is unlimited in crafting the lives of people. No two are the same.
Jesus asks us to “Love one another;” but we have trouble doing that. People are born with different gene sets, placed in different environments, and live through different experiences that shape our individual views of the world and the way we respond to it. Yet we take pride in our own uniqueness, but with some level of contempt for everyone else’s. But when Jesus tells us to “love your neighbor as yourself,” He refers to love as an act of the kind God wants performed for another person’s health and wholeness to help fulfill His will for that person.[1]
Scripture reminds, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” But so are the people we fear, or those who have hurt us deeply, or have talents we wish we had. Yet God created them too.
People. Each person a unique work of art, made in the image of God. Each one a story. Maybe we would love them if we could hear each one tell theirs.
I wonder if we were simply mindful that their story made them who they are, might we at least begin to love them the way Jesus intended?
Maybe we should ask God for help with that. And a little nudge from each other might be helpful too.
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard +
[1] Miller, Keith, A Second Touch, Word Books, 1967, p. 86
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