Strecher-Bearer Friends...seeing the best in people

     More and more in life I am trying to see the best in people. This past week I was praying that God would help me to focus more on being in awe of Him and less in awe of myself. One of the ways that I attempted to do this was to write down five things a day that made me in awe of who God is in the world. These are just a few of the things that I wrote down: -I saw God in the beauty of my children. They are amazing on both the inside and outside. -God showed me himself in the beauty of a small tree on my daily walk to school. I got the sense that there is not a part of His creation that He does not have a purpose for in this world. -I saw God in a friend today who stop me between classes and asked if he could pray with me. -I saw God today in people coming to clean the house of a friend who is in the hospital. These were just a few thoughts that I jotted down in seeing the awe of God. As I look over the past week of my journaling, I can see that almost all of the places that I saw God was in His people.

     In the grand scheme we all have an inner struggle of what our flesh wants us to be verses who God has created us to be in Him. There is a story in the Bible found in the second chapter of Mark that demonstrates the best in people. It is the story of the four men that carried their friend on a stretcher to come and see Jesus with the hope of being cured. When they arrived at the house where Jesus was staying, they were met with the reality and discouragement that it was a packed house! The masses of people crowed not only the entrance, but also the inner parts of the house. I think at this point many would have given up and headed home, but what is demonstrated next is the loyalty of the paraplegic’s friends. They ascended to the roof with their friend, cut through the thatch, and constructed a way of lowering the man to the one where the answers could be found. The circumstance of what was seen was not going to stop these "stretcher-bearer" friends from getting their friend to Jesus.

     I am grateful that I have these kinds of people in my life. There are times that I need to be carried and have the humility to allow my friends to carry me to the feet of Jesus; however, there are times that God allows me to be that stretcher bearer friend to others. Hopefully I can have the courage to be both of the types of people found in this story. So, it is becoming a desire of mine to see the best in people first and not expect the worst. My prayer and responsibility is to be on "Awe" alert of God and point other people to Him and His awe.