If you missed this heart-warming story of generosity in action as reported by Canadian television and then picked up by Christian Century magazine, read and be encouraged.
Passengers on a bus in Winnipeg, Manitoba, were stunned on a cool morning early this fall when their driver stopped the bus, got out and called to a man who was walking on the sidewalk without shoes. The driver proceeded to give the man his own shoes. A passenger later asked him why he had done that. “I couldn’t stand seeing someone walking barefoot in . . . temperatures like this,” the bus driver said.
I’m reminded of another good word, this from the New Testament book of Matthew (chapter 25):
Jesus said: “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes [shoes] and you did not cloth me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look at me.
We busy, distracted, self-focused humans answer: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or prison, and not help you?”
The Lord replies, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
Today, may we have eyes to see and hearts to serve the ones and the One outside the security of our “bus.”