Humility, Joy, & Jesus

There are so many people that make their way through the doors of Family of God each day and lately those numbers seem to keep climbing. Though our days can sometimes be challenging, interacting with the people at Family of God is the best part of my job. I am always humbled by the opportunities we have to share Christ’s love with others and even more humbled when those we serve end up revealing Christ’s love to me.

This was the case earlier in November with one particular man who caught my attention among the crowd of people in the room that day. I had never seen him before. He appeared tired and worn and his layers of clothes were dirty, soiled, and carried a foul odor. After the meal was served that day the man found one of our deacons and asked if he could wash his feet somewhere. Deacon John of course said yes and found the man a bucket, filled it with hot water, and led him to the lobby to sit down.

Shortly after the man began washing his feet one of our volunteers came and got me. “There’s a man upstairs who’s in desperate need of care,” he said. I knew right away who the volunteer was talking about but if I’m being honest, I was not very excited to be the person he’d found to help. The odor imbued in the man’s clothes had kept me from engaging with him throughout the night but, I knew in that moment I was being called to serve him. Myself and a few others helped to gather everything from soap and a towel, to socks, new clothes, and a brand new pair of shoes that had recently been donated, the shoes even happened to be the man’s exact size! As we helped care for him, Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 began to flood my mind, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

I was humbled as I thought about how I had been reluctant to serve the man in front of me moments before. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these... you did for me,” this man was indeed also royalty. I began to picture my Savior, my King, laying in a manger as a helpless baby. In that moment it dawned on me that the scene in Bethlehem probably smelled just as bad as the one that I was standing in and yet my God entered into it with joy. I became so overwhelmed not only with the love and humility with which Jesus entered the world but also with the joy we receive when we serve Him by serving the least of these.

As we enter into this Christmas season let us remember the humility with which our Savior entered the world, let us be drawn to the people and places that others might be driven from, and let us always find Jesus there.