| A group of salesmen went to a
regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives
that they would be home in time for Friday night's dinner. In
their rush, with tickets and brief-cases, one of these salesmen
inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of baskets of
apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back,
they
all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
All but one. He paused, took a deep
breath, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple
stand had been overturned.
He told his buddies to go on without him, waved
goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their
home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he
returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal
floor.
He was glad he did. The 16 year old girl
was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her
cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her
spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping, and no
one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her,
gathered up the apples, put them into the baskets, and helped set the
display up once more. As he did this, he noticed that many of them
had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.
When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet
and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $20 for the damage we
did. Are you okay?"
She nodded through her tears. He
continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too
badly."
As the salesman started to walk away, the
bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister...." He
paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes.
She continued, "Are you Jesus?"
He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered.
Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question
burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"
Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's
our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people
cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is
blind to His love, life and grace. If we claim to know Him, we
should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than
simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living
the Word as life unfolds day to day. You are the apple of His eye even
though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was
doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full
for our damaged fruit.
Let us live like we are worth the price He
paid.
-- Author Unknown
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