About The Stranger

  Pick out one of your best friends in your mind. Got it? Now give me a dollar figure that you would accept to never have any contact with them again. In other words, “how much is that relationship worth to you?”

  It’s tough to even place a dollar figure on a relationship, isn’t it? But what about the person you only know on a casual basis? You know each other by first name but you don’t really have any measurable influence in each other’s lives. Would you accept a dollar figure to never see them again? What about the complete stranger? If I told you that I would pay you even $50.00 to avoid talking to the next stranger that you are sitting beside; I’ll bet you would take me up on it… Why?

  Does the friend have more value than the stranger? Does a person hold more or less value based on their relationship to me? Do their needs hold equal importance?  If a stranger needs a word of encouragement or direction from me; is it as important to give it to them as it is if a friend needs some encouragement or direction?

  I’m asking myself these questions and they make me squirm a little bit. I know that God has intentionally brought friendships into my life and I’m responsible to cultivate those relationships and keep them healthy, but I also know that He doesn’t place a higher value on one soul over another. He doesn’t have one chosen group of people that He wants a relationship with and another group that He doesn’t care about.

  I have this thing about talking to people on airplanes. I avoid it if I can. I would rather read a good book and ignore everyone around me, than to carry any conversation with someone beside me. My hearing keeps getting worse as I get older and it takes a lot of concentration to get what someone is saying when there’s a lot of background noise. To do that for a couple of hours, wears me out.

  This week I happened to be sitting beside a gentleman, on an airplane, for about 3 hours, and he wanted to talk. The problem was that I didn’t want to talk. He had a very “type A” personality but he had a really soft voice and I was only getting about every other word. I spent the first 2 hours trying to figure out how to get him to stop talking to me. (Neither headphones nor a book worked) He kept bringing up different topics and asking me what I thought about them. Suddenly he said something that made me stop and think.

  He had asked me what I thought about the war in Afghanistan. After I gave him my thoughts about that he said, “You make a lot of sense and you’ve said stuff in the last couple of hours that I’ve never thought of. I’m glad I got to sit next to you because I’ve learned some things today.” Now I had just finished reading Francis Chan’s book “The Forgotten God” a couple of hours earlier and I connected the two and realized that God had placed me beside a man who had some questions and then had given me answers to his questions. I was so self-absorbed that I almost missed it.

  Jesus never seemed to place a higher value on His friends than He did the stranger. It didn’t even matter if the stranger was a Samaritan Woman. He placed a high value on each person He came in contact with because He saw them from a Creator’s perspective. He ministered to their needs out of heart of love, not out of religious obligation.

  Lord, give me the heart of Jesus for the stranger. Guide me towards the people who need a touch from You, then give me the sensitivity to Your Spirit that allows me to minister to their need. You love each person and I don’t. Help me to simply be a channel of Your love.