Then he will say
to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and
you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was
a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or
sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer
them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of
these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
-
Matthew 25:41-46
A
few weeks ago, my wife and I were enjoying a much-anticipated date night at a
restaurant in Clifton when something caught our attention. We’d been delighting
in the food, the atmosphere, and each other’s company, barely even noticing
what was going on beyond our table of two. But then we started to hear a rat-tat-tat sound above us—faint at
first, but then louder and faster. Within minutes, the sound became thunderous.
A quick look outside made clear what was happening: a downpour of not only
rain, but golf ball-sized hail.
The
live band in the corner of the restaurant stopped playing, unable to compete
with the cacophony of rain and hail pounding the metal roof. And table by
table, people rose from their seats to walk to the window and watch the storm furiously
descend upon the town. Every conversation in the restaurant—about work and
family and current events and any number of things—stopped, replaced by the
same questions: how big are the hailstones? Where’d you park your car? How long
do you think this’ll last?
The
storm ended up dissipating almost as suddenly as it had arrived, its furious peak
lasting all of 5 minutes. Person after person returned to their tables,
conversations resumed, and the band started playing again. But I was struck by
what I’d witnessed: for just a few minutes, God had forced us to stop and pay
attention to what He was doing.
It’s
difficult for God to catch our attention on a day-to-day basis. We’re so caught
up in our little lives, worried about the big project at work and the family
reunion next month and the soccer game we’re late for, that it seems like we’re
only really listening to God during the time we’ve begrudgingly given Him on
Sunday mornings. If He wants our attention outside of that hour, then He’d
better show up with thunder and lightning, otherwise we probably won’t notice.
But
Jesus warns us that God is often trying to get our attention in subtler
ways—and woe unto us if we’re not paying attention. Sometimes God calls to us
from the whirlwind, but other times—perhaps even more often—He does so with the voices unheard by polite society,
the voices Jesus listened to when no one else would. If we are to call
ourselves Jesus’s followers, we must listen to their voices too, because to
fail “the least of these” is to fail the Lord himself.
The
Lord can stop you in your tracks with what insurance adjustors call “acts of
God,” those awesome displays of devastation and grandeur—and sometimes He does.
But sometimes He will try to get your attention with something far less
majestic, far less impressive, but far more meaningful: a person you can help.
The only question is, will you stop and notice?
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