Life. who are we? why are we here?
This is finals season and every coffee shop around town is packed. I have a new favorite place this semester and I make it my cozy office pretty much every evening. This place in particular has its constant flow of students and hipsters finding their place in and about. This past week I have seen a new face of a different kind poking through the blur of mason jars and laptops. This face is older and more worn with life. His clothes are always the same and his hands always carry the same two plastic bags. He takes a corner seat to settle into and pulls out his book, today he is on chapter 31. As I have seen his face almost everyday this week the newness of it is fading into the usual, but tonight as I took a table next to his, my heart ached. I sat down with the chipotle I brought for my roommate and I catch a glance at his table, peanut butter crackers. Again conviction painfully grips my heart, I feel sick to my stomach! This man who is clearly in need sits right in our midst, yet we just pass him by with our four-dollar coffees. Our attention glued to the screens in our palms, too afraid or maybe ashamed to even offer a smile. Because honestly we are all aware of our abundance compared to his lacking. I can’t help but think of the amazing opportunity we are missing out on, a chance to bless or be blessed. I mean seriously, what are our priorities? We are too busy slaving over a paper or quiz that will earn us what? A grade? We could be investing or pouring into another human; a brother/sister we are called to love. Earlier this week in one of my devotions I came across James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
OK, at this point of writing and remembering the verse in James, my heart was pounding out of my chest and I knew the Lord was calling me to get up and go join this man for a conversation. Not going to lie, I was shaky as I got up out of my seat to approach his table. But the words of James 1: 27 were on loop in my mind. I asked if I could sit with him and he welcomed me as he introduced himself as James. His name is JAMES?!?! Well of course it is, because the Lord is sweet and humorous in that way. The words written by James thousands of years ago, now have moved me to reach out to the James on my left. We had a great conversation of books, bicycles and foreign countries. Thank you Lord for your convicting Holy Spirit, your living Word and my new coffee shop friend, James.
