Happy Friday Friends!
I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day on this beautiful Friday morning! I hope that you have had a great week and that you are looking forward to a wonderful weekend with your family and friends. This morning I hope your heart is filled with great hope! :)
Yesterday my 13-year old Tender Warrior had a baseball game. After the game I was getting all loaded up with the Haslam's necessities from the game - 3 lawn chairs, umbrella, etc. Just as I had everything loaded up and ready to make the journey to the car I saw our sweet friend who is in a wheelchair struggling to wheel herself across the grass field to her van. I quickly put everything that I had loaded on my shoulders down and went over and pushed her to her car. She thanked me continually as I pushed her across the field, explaining how hard it is to wheel herself across a grass field and how tired she gets. I hardly broke a sweat though it was over 90 degrees and to me it was nothing. To her it meant everything.
As my 13-year old and I were driving home we talked about the game for a few minutes and then our talk turned to our sweet friend who can't just walk across a grass field like we can. I asked him if he had noticed her struggling and he said he had. I asked him if he noticed her son walking way ahead of her, oblivious to the struggles of his Mom. This he had not noticed. We then talked about how we all do this sometimes. Caught up in our world, our thoughts, our problems, our worries, our concerns...so caught up in what is going on in our lives that we don't notice the need, the opportunity for us to serve, others. You see, her son is a good kid. He is also like the rest of us. His game had ended, his team had lost, he (along with everyone else including my guy) had made mistakes and he was upset. Because of what was going on in his life he did not have eyes to see.
My Tender Warrior and I then talked about this...eyes to see. To really be intentional about seeing the needs of others. To not get so caught up in our own little world, our worries, our concerns that we cannot see the needs of others and, most importantly, step up and do something to help them. You know how when you want something really bad like a certain car, a certain shoe, a certain TV - you can fill in the blank with whatever it is you want - you always notice when you see it? Yeah, that is what I am hoping to cause in all of us on this beautiful morning...that we will be as in tune with the needs of others, of our opportunities to serve them as we are with whatever it is we want - that we never miss an opportunity to serve another.
If you are feeling real brave and daring this morning I encourage you to ask God to break your heart for what breaks His. I am serious; be careful and don't do it unless you really want eyes to see. I promise you, you will see things that you have never seen before and your spirit will not allow you not to act. There are so many needs in this world, there are so many broken people, broken lives...you will find countless ways to serve others, to make a difference in their lives. Most of these acts will be small to you and yet profound to the person who simply needed a push in a chair, a smile of encouragement, a word of belief or a helping hand. You have no idea the impact you will have on generations to come, perhaps on eternity itself, by simply having eyes to see.
So it is not hard at all to see (no pun intended!) the challenge I have for all of us coming today. Today I want to challenge all of us to have eyes to see and to serve those who have a need - please remember Friends, Jesus came to serve, not to be served. I also want to do something different this week. I want to respectfully ask you share your stories of having eyes to see and then acting in service to others. If you are receiving this "Happy Friday" via email, please reply to the email I sent to you and share your story. If you are reading the blog of this "Happy Friday" please submit your story as a comment. Next Friday I am going to post all of the stories as the "Happy Friday." Whether I get 1 or 100, I will make them next weeks "Happy Friday." Now, out of respect for everyone and their privacy, I will not identify you directly - I will just identify the author of each story by their initials. You see, the whole purpose of "What Will Your Influence Be...?" is to encourage intentional, positive influence. I want to give all of you the opportunity to be an intentional, positive influence in others lives and enable you to encourage them to do the same. Your story, your life, will be used to speak to the lives of others regardless of how small it might seem to you. See what happens when you ask for eyes to see? Now I have all of you working!
Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your precious family. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.
Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious families and Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!
Kev
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