Thank God It’s You They See

THERE WAS a cab driver who drove as a mission for God. He would pick up people from all walks of life, and he would rely greatly on the Spirit to inspire him to do one thing that would distinguish him from the rest of the cab drivers in his large city. His favourite customers were those who were down on fortune, the elderly, widows and widowers, the poor – even those who he knew couldn’t afford the fare.

He would treat them all kindly, and his kindness was always based in believing each person he met was a good person; his mission was to ‘make good people better’, by making them feel better – about life, about themselves, about the world they lived in.

Sometimes people needed a chat. So he would spend the time listening. Other times, when he could tell them looking intently at the meter, he would say at the end of the ride – “You’re my tenth passenger this shift – that means you’ve ridden for free! God bless you.” Some would query him, (“Are you sure?”) whilst others would simply just thank him. Sometimes he could tell the person needed encouragement – he would find out something about them they were passionate about and then he would encourage them around that.

Every time he was able to bless a passenger he received from God an abundance of reward: to know that it was he and not an abusive, unfriendly or uncommunicative cab driver that God had chosen for this particular passenger. That gave him a great deal of delight.

The cab driver loved his job because he had the freedom to work for God. He didn’t work for some cab company – he worked for the Lord himself.

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And so it is for us. We can choose to work for a master or for The Master.

When we imagine the profound impact that can be made in a 5-minute interaction of kindness, and we know we’re doing God’s bidding, we are filled with the blessings of having known: God appointed us for their blessing.

They weren’t abused by somebody else. They weren’t lonely in another person’s company. They weren’t treated unfairly. They were treated with grace.

This is our everyday opportunity: to give the person we see our full, creative selves, so as to give them a gift they couldn’t have expected. We’re blessed to be a blessing and how wonderful it is that the other person interacted with us and not some abuser, unfriendly, or scheming type.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.