Everybody, Always

pretend to care for people who are hurting. The way I know this is simple
—I don’t do anything to help them. I’ll say I am too busy to help
someone in need when it isn’t time I lack; it’s compassion. In short, I
settle for merely hoping rather than actually helping.
We all know people like Walter. People who seem to have all the time
in the world for other people. The reason is simple. Walter thinks every
needy person he meets is Jesus. People who are becoming love make this
look easy.
As a father, I know if someone wants to do something nice for me,
they do it for my kids. Good fathers are like that. When someone does
something terrific for my kids, they don’t even need to tell me. Fathers
always seem to find out. Mothers know before it even happens. I bet
that’s how God feels too. Jesus said when we give away love freely to one
another and meet the needs of poor and needy and isolated and hurting
people, we’re actually doing it for Him. Even when we don’t know we
are. He said if we wanted to do something nice for God, we’d do it for His
kids. And we don’t need to make a big deal out of it either. He’ll find out.
Good Fathers do.
I’ve met a lot of people who say they’re waiting for God to give them
a “plan” for their lives. They talk about this “plan” like it’s a treasure
map God has folded up in His back pocket. Only pirates have those.
People who want a reason to delay often wait for plans. People who are
becoming love don’t. It’s almost as if Jesus knew we’d invent excuses
under the guise of waiting for His “plan,” so He made it simple for us. He
said His plan for all of us was to love Him and then find people who are
hungry or thirsty or who feel like strangers or are sick or don’t have
clothes or are in prison or creep us out or are our enemies and go love
them just like they were Him.
Game. Set. Match. We can stop looking for another plan— that’s it.
Instead of just agreeing with Jesus, I started looking around my life
for the kind of people Jesus said we’d be talking about when we finally
meet Him on the other side of heaven’s threshold. I was kind of hoping I