Disciples among us.

     ​I bumped into a man stocking shelves in a local store in a nearby town. He apologized for having to turn his wheelchair around in front of me. I told him that I wasn’t in a hurry, and it wasn’t a big deal. 

    I told him that he was an inspiration. In a time when able bodied people claimed they couldn’t find a job, a man in a wheelchair was working harder than most of today’s young people would want to. 

     He told me he didn’t want to be an inspiration because of his handicap. He wanted to be an inspiration for his love of God. He was humble because God says that we shouldn’t be prideful. He did what he did because God gave him the strength to carry on each day. His body wasn’t a reflection of him. The Holy Spirit and what filled his head and heart was what made him who he was. He  shared the gospel every chance he got.

     He said that he often talked to people that came in the store about Jesus Christ freeing us from sin by dying on the cross. He said it was difficult to spread the word in this world full of sin and hatred, but he still tries. 

     I told him that the best that we could hope for is that someone will remember us someday and smile because of something we said or did. He teared up a little bit and told me that an elderly woman had told him that she knew he was a Christian, because she could see the Holy Spirit in him.  That is what he lived for. To show people what Jesus had done for him.

     I bent down and gave the tallest man I met that day a hug and said, “I love you, brother.”  I’d just met one of Jesus’s disciples. That doesn’t happen every day.

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