Wednesday; January 30
The other day I was eating
at one of those all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants. About the time I got seated a bus load of
people came in and occupied the section next to mine. A few minutes into my meal I overheard two
servers talking about how they were the only ones on that side of the
restaurant. While they seemed a little
annoyed, they also talked about what this should say about the faith management
had in them … they were good enough to handle it. The interesting thing about this is that this
was the last I heard from these two employees.
They never checked on me, cleared my dirty dishes or filled my empty
drink glass. Thankfully I could get my
own food, but my self-service was the only service I received.
Now, I am not complaining;
rather, this incident got me to thinking about us as Christians. How often do we tell people how much we care
… about the work we can do … about how much of a difference our message can
make in the world, but never get around to doing it? We realize the responsibilities we have and
we profess our potential, we just don’t quite follow-through. Our conversations amongst ourselves detail
good intentions and well laid out plans; but the homeless person on the street
or the lonely and hurting person in our office who might overhear us are not
impressed with our plans – they want to experience our faith in action. Years ago James wrote, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need
of daily food, and
one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do
not give them what is necessary for their body,
what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”
(James 2:15-17). Let’s do
more than talk a good game … let’s walk the good walk.
Think About It!