Missions and any kind of ministry involves the development of close relationships with others. While this obviously doesn’t happen overnight, there is usually a moment that started moving the relationship from “acquaintance” to “friend.”
Unfortunately we find ourselves often over-thinking this connection moment, making it a lot more complicated than necessary.
It’s easy to forget that in the end connection doesn’t come from a program, book, or series of lessons.
It comes from random acts of kindness
Last Saturday I finished a ten-mile run with some training partners, and to be honest wasn’t feeling too good [1]. While walking up to the area were we sign in and out of training I noticed free coffee, donuts, and bagels sitting on a table.
Five minutes later I was devouring a cinnamon crunch bagel from Panera..and as you could imagine my legs didn’t hurt that much anymore.
My favorite part of the morning was watching the expression on runners faces the first moment they noticed the table with free food; it isn’t every day you see someone go from exhaustion to excitement that quickly.
The goodies actually came from a sales representative who was allowing us to try out a companies running watch that morning. But something tells me we will remember her act of kindness a lot longer than the product she was selling.
There are many people in the world who are struggling with things much more serious than physical exhaustion. And it’s those people who desperately need a random act of kindness.
- An encouraging word
- A listening ear
- Being surprised with their favorite snack
- Someone who will defend and fight for them
- Someone who asks “seriously how are you doing?”
It’s acts like this that go far deeper than a cinnamon crunch bagel, and meet the greater need.
because deep down we all just want to be loved.
- there were lots of hills in our route, so my legs were pretty sore ↩
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