We spent the week hearing God's call to Abram, and to us as well. As a pilgrim people, we are called to always be walking with God and towards God as we realize that it's the steps of the journey, not the destination which matters most. Additionally, we are called to be a "blessing to others" along the way. In this case, "others" refers to everyone we meet along the jouney - our family, our friends (both at school, and within our J2A group), strangers we meet, people crying out for help who God puts in our path. How do we become that blessing? We start by tuning into God each day, asking Christ to guide us. I find that if He leads a person into my path, He also guides me in how to respond to them. For example, I like to take walks along the Henry Hudson Trail at lunch. During this summer, I've noticed more men hanging out with nothing to do as the economy has continued to degrade. A few days ago, one of them stopped me near this bridge and asked me for spare change. Honestly, I didn't know how to respond, so I shook my head no and quickly passed by.
You'll never guess what happend. The next morning I was flipping through my Bible looking for the story of the Road to Emaus, and it literally opened to the story of the Good Samaritan. (can you believe it? Sometimes God is NOT subtle.) The man was at the same bridge (waiting for me?) during my walk that day. This time, I gave him a five and chatted briefly with him. As I was talking with him, Christ lead me to share with him about our soup kitchen just a mile away on the trail. Lately, I've noticed him walking back from Keansburg... a little less down. He said his name was Carl, but I'm pretty sure His name is really Jesus (see Matt 25:31-46).
So God will guide you in how to be a blessing to others. In fact he already has. Last week in class I was personally blessed by how open everyone was to this new class format. I especially appreciated the prayer that you all wrote and how everyone took part in writing it...
Dear God, I will try to be a better person by connecting with you daily, spending time with family and helping others. Guide us and inspire us through this pilgrimage. Give us strength and determination to complete this journey, and become like a family through Christ our Lord. Amen.
I'm already looking forward to our meeting tomorrow!
(Check out this video segment. We'll see the rest of it in class.)
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