Today’s Devotional: Extending Friendship to Everyone
Have you ever written off someone just because of the way they look or act?
Every day, we pass up opportunities to connect with people because we assume that they’re too busy, or too angry, or too different than us. When we jump to such conclusions, we may be missing out on an opportunity to share God’s love. Our Daily Bread offers us a simple story about how reaching out without judgment can be a life-changing action:
Two young men with mischief on their minds approached a missionarys outreach bus parked in a downtown area of a German city.
The missionaries were there to offer refreshments as a way to open up conversations about Christ. The two visitors, wearing skull-and-crossbones bandannas, were there to offer trouble.
But the missionaries didnt respond to the ruffians as they expected. The Christians welcomed them warmly and engaged them in discussion. Surprised, the guys hung around long enough to hear the gospel. One trusted Jesus that day. The other, the next day.
Those two young men and the missionaries who reached them were light-years apart culturally. The guys were German; the missionaries, American. The guys were involved in a culture of darkness and death; the missionaries were shining the light. The cultural divide was crossed with cookies and nonjudgmental love.
Are there particular people in your life that you ignore because you think you’re too different from them? Have you ever shared God’s love with someone who was “different”? How did it go?
