The Blog

I am a people watcher. I like to go to places where I am surrounded by people and observe them just to see the way they behave and the way they interact with one another. One of my favorite places to do this is on the bus. There are times when I will just ride the bus and observe people.

The other day I was riding the bus with a friend of mine and we started talking about people. We were at the Eugene bus station and he said something to the effect that the place was a psychiatrists dream. This got me to thinking about why I care about the way people behave. Am I like a psychiatrist who lumps people into statistics, no offense to any psychiatrists out there? The answer I came up with is ‘No,’ When I look at those people I don’t see statistics or numbers. I don’t sit there and make a list, (I got 3 homeless people, 4 single moms, 6 drug addicts, 4 students, etc.) when I look at these people I see individuals.

Each person has their own unique story of how they got to where they are today. I find myself caring about their story and who they are. I begin to care about where their future is going to take them. I start to wonder about their family and what their relationship is with their family. The funny thing is, the more I find myself caring about who they are the more I start to care about whether they know Jesus as their savior or not. Then I start to find ways to share God’s love with them.

I really think that this is the attitude that we need if we are going to be effective messengers of Christ. We have to begin to care more about the individual than about getting another notch on our belt. Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. I don’t know about you but when I am in pain I do everything in my power to stop the pain. Yet we see a random person wandering through life in constant pain and we walk on by or we’ll give them one of the patented Christian answers, “Jesus loves you” or, “it will all be O.K.” or my personal favorite “God has a plan”. All of these statements are true but if we just throw them out there then they don’t really mean anything. We have to care about people, otherwise our words mean nothing and we won’t make an impact in their life.

Jesus understood people. He cared about people. He showed love to each individual. That is how he affected their lives. He knew each individual persons story. He knew their heart. We don’t have the luxury of knowing each person’s past or their heart but we do have the ability to care about their past and their heart. I want to care about people more, and I hope that what God has been speaking to me through this has spoken to you as well. Lets go make an impact.

Michael Crofford