This morning, I received a message from a friend I call the X-man.
It began with a friendly reminder to turn my phone off during an AA meeting. Apparently, even spiritual enlightenment comes with a request to silence your electronic devices.
Then he shared a meditation about something Jesus spent a great deal of time teaching us: Look for the good in people instead of searching for their faults.
That’s a pretty revolutionary idea in a world where everybody seems to be conducting performance reviews on everybody else.
In recovery, we learn that criticism rarely transforms a person. Encouragement can. Condemnation builds walls. Love opens doors.
And sometimes the person who needs that encouragement most is the one who has spent a lifetime getting in his own way.
Then the X-man said something that stopped me in my tracks.
He told me that when I approached him after a meeting a few weeks earlier, he felt as though he were connecting with God. He said my words had made him feel that I was serving as God’s mouthpiece, whether I realized it or not.
That’s quite a compliment for a fellow who still struggles to remember where he put his reading glasses.
But here’s the thing.
I don’t believe God needs perfect messengers.
If He did, the Bible would be considerably shorter.
Moses struggled with speaking. Peter denied Jesus. Paul persecuted Christians. And the disciples spent an astonishing amount of time misunderstanding the very man they were following.
Yet God worked through them.
Perhaps the miracle isn’t that God speaks through imperfect people.
Perhaps the miracle is that He keeps finding willing ones.
The X-man went on to remind me that there is wisdom in silence, beauty in stillness, and strength in recognizing our limitations.
Then came the sentence I needed most:
Give God this moment. Your immediate obedience and surrender of your very next action.
Not tomorrow.
Not next year.
Not after I solve every problem, repair every relationship, and finally figure out what all these numbers mean.
Just this moment.
My next action.
That’s where faith becomes something more than belief.
It becomes imitation.
Because Jesus didn’t merely tell us to love one another. He showed us how.
And maybe that’s the whole assignment.
Find the good. Encourage the weary. Forgive the difficult. Love the unlovable.
Especially when the unlovable person happens to be staring back at you in the mirror.
Thank you, X-man.
Message received.
Phone silenced.
Heart listening.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. — Galatians 6:9 (KJV)
Good News. Good Music. Good Works.
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