I am always in a state of prayer that God would allow me to see Him at work around me and to open up opportunities for me to minister. I believe that God is always working around us if we would just be obedient in recognizing the open doors. There is an older lady that I work with and she comes across as a rough around the edges kind of person. Most people don’t really take her seriously and I have heard many say that they don’t like working with her. A couple of weeks ago I began to just have a conversation with her and get to know her and found out very quickly that the tough and sarcasm bit was really just a mask that she wears to hide the hurt she is currently going through. Underneath that hard shell was a broken lady. In fact the shell wasn’t really that hard and began to crack pretty easily as soon as I actually took the time to get to know her and talk to her like she matters. She seemed pretty surprised that I cared about what was going on in her life. She shared that her husband has terminal cancer and she is helping take care of him. This led to me having a chance to pray with her and share the gospel.

We live in a world where people are broken, hurting, and without hope. How many people do you interact with daily where you place your immediate label on them based on their apparent look or personality. There are people all around you that are hurting and lost in their sin. They need to experience the grace of God found only in Jesus Christ but we just haven’t taken the time to invest a little of ourselves into them. Many have labeled this lady as just an old bitter angry woman when in reality she is broken and just trying to mask her pain. When someone appears to be angry or sarcastic on the outside, it is usually just a symptom of a root problem going on within a person underneath the surface. Be careful not to just write somebody off because of the way they act on the outside, but just like Christ engaged the woman at the well, (John 4) let’s sit down and actually get to know people and find out who they really are. We are called to be the salt and light in this dark world, (Matt 5) and I promise you that it is a dark world. It doesn’t take much to flip a light switch on! Let’s engage this culture and love on people. Let’s stop labeling and start engaging!