Every Family in God's Service

I won’t use those self check-out counters at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. I’d rather stand in line for ten minutes and talk to a real person at the register and even real people in line with me than swipe a card and push a few buttons and have no human interaction with anybody. My kids say it’s because I’m old. I tell them, no, it’s more important to interact with people than to be in such a hurry.

I can’t show God’s grace and love to a machine. I can’t smile at a machine or talk to a machine (I suppose I could; but I’d probably get arrested). If a machine miscalculates my change or forgets to give me a receipt, my attempts at a Christ-like patient and pleasant attitude will have no impact on a machine. I can’t talk to a machine about the pictures of its grandchildren on its apron. A machine will never ask me about my empty tomb t-shirt or where I go to church.

Our time and technology --- calendars, clocks, and computers --- are increasingly robbing us of more and more human interaction. This frantically hurried culture is chipping away at Scripture’s contention that we are not a collection of individuals but, rather, a Body with each member belonging to all the others.

We invest our lives in one another. We commit ourselves to one another. It happens at weddings and funerals. It happens at graduations and 5^th Sunday dinners.

“Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality…Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” ~Romans 12:13-15

I can’t rejoice with you unless I know what you’re rejoicing about. I can’t mourn with you unless I know why you’re mourning. That’s where the time investment and the sharing come in. That’s where loving human interaction with one another should take priority over our busy schedules.

Today, make that phone call you’ve been putting off. Tonight, reconnect with that family member or neighbor you’ve been too busy to visit. And ask the cashier about her grandkids.

Peace,

Allan