Friday, January 27, 2023

The Strangers Among Us

Friday, January 27, 2023

My servants and maids consider me a stranger.  I am like a foreigner to them.     I was a father to the poor and assisted strangers who needed help.                 

I have never turned away a stranger but have opened my doors to everyone.  Job 19:15, 29:16, Job 31:32

As the ancient Job found out, you can go from Hero to Zero in an afternoon.  It’s somewhat like that in ministry, moving from church to church; always a new town.  There’s an old joke minister’s families know too well.  There was a knock on the parsonage door, and a child answered.  The caller asked the child:  Are your parents home?  The child replied:  Pa’s in his study prayin’ an’ Mom’s upstairs packin’.  When the Bishop’s cabinet is busy making appointments for the coming year, ministerial families take out the checklist on what definitely needs to be packed, and that which is to be discarded to make moving lighter and easier.  Old Job learned what Methodist clergy live.

Part of that life is being a stranger.  Moving often to a new place brings out the “stranger syndrome”.  You’ve just spent several years in one place, and you are uprooted.  All the daily activities and routines must be re-thought; school, dentist, doctors, grocery stores, traffic patterns, re-registering to vote, forwarding addresses filed, new telephone numbers, and on, and on…!  And, for good measure, there is a whole plateful of new names to go with new faces.  And it all hinges on where the Bishop decides to send you next.

Job’s take on strangers had to have changed dramatically that day his wealth, health, family, and community reputation were drained to the dust.  Suddenly, his awareness of what it means to lose everything, and gain a personal and incisive understanding of how strangers are sometimes (oftentimes) despised.  All Job’s neighbors, fellow city officials, and even friends were wondering just what really bad-awful thing he had done to tick God-off that much.  And yet, Job hadn’t done anything wrong; his head was spinning…he’d been appointed to his next, and most dreaded chapter in life, suffering stranger!

If your life has ever been in Job’s kind of shambles, you probably thank God for the Kathryn Micklers in the places you wander.  Well, you probably don’t know Kathryn, but she’s one of God’s blessings to the strangers.  In 1990 our little tribe packed and moved to Jacksonville, Florida to begin serving with a new church.  Kathryn was one of our members.  

About four weeks into this new relationship, Kathryn made an appointment with the church secretary to come to my office.  When she came through the door that morning, she was carrying a box just a little larger than a loaf of bread.  She placed it on my desk with a smile, and said:  Just a little something to welcome you to our community; hope you like it.  When I opened the box, there was Emmett Kelly, Jr…the praying clown.  Kathryn said, I have a little jewelry store, and I carry these for sale.  I heard you say in your sermon last week that your parents took you to the circus back in the 1950’s and you saw Emmett Kelly in person.  I thought you ought to have him here.

That kindness, Kathryn’s welcoming the stranger, has stayed close to my heart these past 30+ years; the praying clown is still on my desk…and I am reminded every day what it’s like to be a stranger, and welcomed like family.

For You Today  

Strangers tend to keep a low profile…sometimes you’ve got to look hard, listen well, and be ready to be the blessing someone else needs.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

5-Part Series:  While You’re Waiting for God to Answer:  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©   

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