‘‘Spilled Apples’’
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. Well, as such things go, one thing led to another. The sales manager talked longer than anticipated and the meeting ran overtime. Their flights were scheduled to leave out of Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and they had to speed frantically to the airport. With tickets and brief cases in hand, they barged through the terminal to catch their flight back home. In their rush one of these salesmen unintentionally kicked over a table which held a display with baskets of apples for sale. The 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 of them, for he paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the young 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 young girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for the spilled apples as the crowd swirled about her; no one stopping to help, and no one to care for her plight. They where so busy with their own lives and problems that they could not see and feel for someone in need.
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, for the question startled him and made him wonder. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and turning about in his soul:
“Mister, Are you Jesus?”
Author unknown.
Edited and illustrated by Joe Pottle
Do people mistake you for Jesus? ‘OH WHAT A MISTAKE’ That should be the desire of our hearts, should 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. In His everyday life Jesus always had time to stop and help those in need and He went about doing good. If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as close as we can to the way He would. Knowing Him is more than simply knowing about Him or quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds around us day to day. We are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. Thank God that one day Jesus willingly stopped what He was doing to pick us up from the pit of sin and met our needs. He did this as He hung on a cruel Cross on a hill called Mt. Calvary where He paid in full the price demanded for our damaged fruit. Let's start living like we are worth the price He paid. OH, THAT MEN MAY ASK OF US, “ARE YOU JESUS”?
