Jesus Has A Plan!

10 May Jesus Has A Plan!

Read Matthew 9:35-38 (NLT)
Thought for the Day: Jesus asks us to reach out to others!

How often have we enjoyed eating with friends at a restaurant while being completely oblivious to everything happening behind the scenes? The summer before I went off to college, I was hired to bus tables at a busy restaurant. For the first month, things went according to plan: I showed up, worked my hours, clocked out, collected my tips, and went home. As soon as I got comfortable with this new routine, it was the 4th of July, the restaurant was extremely busy, and both our dishwashers were suddenly no longer employed at our restaurant. (The second was so frustrated after the first left that he quit as well.)

For the first few minutes, I repeatedly brought full buckets of dishes to the pit until it overflowed. After some initial chaos, the back-of-house manager came out of his office and realized what had happened. Seeing confusion and disorder, he didn’t get mad. Instead, he looked at me and said, “Congratulations, you have been promoted to the dish pit. It pays more.” For the rest of the evening, he and I worked together without stopping. By the end of the night, I was tired, but had learned a key lesson: when someone comes in to solve chaos, it is time to get busy.

It is easy to see the chaos and division in our society and do one of two things:
We ignore what is going on (like I did before my manager set me straight).
We get mad (like the second dishwasher after the first left).

Jesus offers us a better way: He has compassion for the lost, realizing that they are simply “confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”. When chaos arrived at the restaurant, my manager gave marching orders.

In our lives today, Jesus is clear: He has compassion for the lost people in our society but asks us to help by reaching out to them. He has a plan and it doesn’t even involve washing dirty dishes! Instead, we can get busy… How? A great way to start is by getting together with someone who is struggling and sharing a meal!

In Christ,
Pastor David (and Stan)