Thursday 28 November 2013

Who's who and what's what? (What do we focus on?)

John 10:20-21
(http://bit.ly/1a7ZZMb)

There was once a rich woman that decided once to have huge Thanksgiving celebration, she invited thousands of friends and their families, professional singers, dancers, next door neighbors, and anyone else she knew; and asked each of them to prepare a small presentation so that there would be an ongoing performance going on during this grand party. After the invitations were sent out and the party planned, the clock ticked down slowly till Thanksgiving Day came. The party was just what it was supposed to be. Everything was crisp, clean, perfect. This rich woman asked a very good friend of hers who was also quite a famous singer to start the acts. He did so by quoting Psalms 23 his favorite Psalm in the bible because of its focus to Christ the shepherd. He sang in such a pure and clear voice that there wasn't a dry eye in the room, and as soon as he finished there was a loud roar of applause... except... there was a noticeable sounds of distress in the midst of all this noise. Soon enough they realised that a young girl in the front was crying on the floor. The mother then explained that this little girl had been so excited for this party that she had prepared that exact Psalm to perform and now was really upset because she felt she couldn't perform it any more. The singer feeling a little guilty encouraged this young girl to come up after him to perform, and with a little coxing she did. She wasn't nearly as practised as the singer, she got word wrong and was very shaky all the way through. There was no applause
after this recital, it didn't have the same power or elegants that the Singer had shown.  Yet afterwards this singer immediately jumped on this stage and hugged this little girl with tears in his own eyes.  He softly whispered in her ear  "Thank you for that, you taught me that even though I knew the scripture better than you, you obviously know the shepherd far better than me"


I love this story so much. The crowd spends the whole time listening to this little girl and comparing her to the professional singer. Only the professional singer could see her act for what it was. He is the one that recognises the love this little girl has for her saviour, and I truly feel this applies as we think of those we know as well.

The scripture in John is an argument between the Jewish people after Jesus Christ has just healed a man. They were trying to decide if Jesus was a man from God or the devil and each of them are focusing on different part of what they know or have heard about him.

"20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?
21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?"

How often do we do similar things to other? how often do we look down on them because they don't do the things we expect? Or we compare what we know about them to other people? I have found that by doing this we miss who people really are. In the case above people mistook the saviour of the world. Is it possible that we mistake people God has put to help us, for people that are sent to hedge up the way?

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