The person in front of you

What is God’s will for my life? What does God want me to be doing with my time, talents and treasure? How can I share the gospel of Jesus Christ? Who do I know that needs encouragement, help and love today?

These may be questions that you ask yourself and yet often the answer to these questions is quite literally right in front of us.

We are so many times preoccupied with ideas, ideologies, plans and overall busyness that we fail to see that the ministry God has called us to and His will for our lives may be the person directly in front of us.

We bump into people at the grocery store, the post office, the mall. We see our neighbors as they walk down the street, we receive text messages, email and phone calls. We read people’s Facebook posts and hear their words of complaint and concern. And then we go to our time of prayer and say “God what should I be doing to advance the gospel”?

What if we begin to look at life and each moment it brings as a moment to love the person in front of us. The person right before us has a need and the God who is over all and our all-in-all who abides within us, can supply for the needs of others through you and me: it may be a word of encouragement or a word of instruction; it might be a smile or a pat on the back; it might be opening the door for someone, greeting someone or helping someone carry their load. God knows what the person in front of you needs. God knows that if you are a believer, you belong to Him and His Spirit is within you able to direct and supply all you need to bring hope, encouragement, love and good cheer to the person in front of you.

So today, would you commit to pray for every single person who comes before you. Whether they come into your physical presence or only to your mind’s eye: would you pray for them? Would you pray that God’s will and way be done in their life and that they would be led unto salvation and into an abundant life of joy and freedom in the Lord? And then would you ask the Lord how you might love the person you see?

If you and I will simply love the person before us with the love of God that He has put within us, we may just find that we not only know God’s will for our lives but that we are even now living it out!