Are You Jesus?

A few years ago, a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. The convention lasted all week, and all the salesmen had assuredtheir wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner.

As they hurried to the airport to catch their return flight, they rushed down the airport's corridor with their briefcases in hand. In their rush, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples.

Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all continued running so they would make their plane. All but one.

He stopped after running a few more yards, took a deep breath, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the 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 16 year old girl running the apple cart was totally blind. She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of the apples 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 $40 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, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"

Sometimes the world looks at us and asks the question "Are You Jesus?" Not literally but figuratively. Do we reflect the attitudes and character of Jesus so much so that people who see us will see Jesus because he lives in us.

There will be days when life just comes at us and we have a hard time living what we believe. I have days like that. That is when I have to ask for God's grace and His mercy because I am afraid that on those days people aren't going to ask "Are you Jesus". The encouraing word in all of this is that God sees and understands that there are going to be moments of disappointment. Moments of hurt and heartache. Moments of failure. Keep the faith. Keep pressing on. You ARE Jesus to so many who need to see Him through you.