What Is Different About You?

July 18, 2017

Daily Reading

Ephesians 4:17-5:2
Psalm 142
This week’s sermon text: Matthew 11:28-30

Field Notes
A few years back, just before I attended seminary, I found myself in the mountains of Guatemala working to build a hurricane shelter with a local pastor. This man was amazing. While he lived and pastored a church 4 hours away in Guatemala City, he knew every single person in the small mountain village on the coast. He knew their struggles, their joys, and their dreams. He was invested in them.

He carried himself in a way I had never seen Christians carry themselves before. He was passionate and charismatic, but more than anything else, he was a friend to these people. He was one of them.

I asked him toward the end of my time there, “What is different about you?”

He just smiled. “I don’t know. What is different about you?”

What is different about me? I hope I am known to be a true friend to all I meet. I hope I am known for my love of neighbor. I hope in a world bent toward success and gaining power and money, I am known for generosity and peacemaking.

I hope we are all different.

Questions for the Field

• What makes you unique in your relationship with God?
• What is different about how you live, if anything?

Family Field Talk

• Where do you see God today?

Prayer Guide
God, make us light-bringers in a world full of dark places and darker hearts. May you be known because of how we live. In your name, Jesus, amen.