echurch

written by Stephan Joubert

“You made my day,” the petrol attendant told me the other day. A wide smile spanned his face. I was stunned. “What did I do?” I asked very surprised. “You called me sir!” he answered. Then he told me how many people treated him with disrespect and even shouted at him. He wanted to know why I called him “sir”. All that I could think of was that God’s Word teaches me to treat other people with respect, and that I tried to live exactly like that. And then I told him that.

When driving away from that filling station, I realized anew how easy it really is to do small things in the name of the Lord… like treating others with respect. How sad that I don’t succeed in constantly walking the extra mile for everyone who crosses my path. Just as sad that when I shared this story somewhere, someone immediately told me that I surely don’t live in the true South Africa. “Beggars, petrol attendants, and the unemployed are only interested in stealing and plundering,” he added. Then he concluded with: “Actually everyone does that these days.”

Excuse me, but I don’t have the luxury of generalizing like this complainant. I don’t know this “everyone” who he’s referring to. And I also don’t know what the aim of “everyone” is. But the Lord Jesus teaches me in Matthew 5-7 that I don’t have the luxury to live and think like “everyone”. And therefore I know that this person in front of me is not “everyone”, but a unique creation of God. I try hard not to treat him like “everyone”.