You Can Make A Difference
Stop. Watch. Listen.
If you do, attuning yourself to the people around you, you will gather a profound sense of the need people have for encouragement.
Sometimes, I do this exercise in a grocery store, Target, or other such crowd. I pray the simple, yet challenging prayer, “Open my eyes to see the need around me.” Immediately, I begin to see. The mother with her infant waiting at the bus stop. The frazzled worker at the checkout, living on little money and sometimes too few tools in the toolbox. The confused gentleman whose memory is slipping away. And many more.
And I want to help. Not out of pity, but out of a sense of solidarity with other sojourners in life. I see their beauty mixed with challenges. Yet, the overwhelming sense that I can’t help them all or fix all of these problems becomes instantly palpable as well.
What to do?
“Do for one, what you wish you could do for everyone.” I heard this quote a few years ago from Andy Stanley and it stuck.
You might not be able to help every patient, or every single mom, or every intellectually discouraged child.
But, you could help one. You could encourage one. And it would make a difference.
Worth Repeating
Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.
-Andy Stanley
