Yesterday was quite a hectic day at work! It started off earlier than usual because we had to go to a big event in Brooklyn. So we left from Jersey City at 6:30AM to go and set up. Yet while we were driving through Chinatown, we hit a huge pothole in the middle of the street. We immediately knew that something was wrong. Then the low tire pressure signal started going off on the dashboard. The tire was most likely flat… So I jumped out of the passenger’s seat, to go see what the damage was. To my surprise both the front and rear tires were not only flat, but the rims were cracked as well.
We immediately pulled over onto a quiet street trying to figure out how to deal with this crisis. We called a tow truck for this car and a taxi for my co-worker so that she could take the equipment and go set-up. Our other co-workers came in their vehicle to take as much equipment as well. So now I am left alone to get this car back to New Jersey.
About an hour later, the tow truck finally came, we got the disabled vehicle onto the flatbed, and we started making the journey back. While sitting in the front, I started talking to the mechanic who came to the rescue. I listened to his story, and we immediately kicked it off because he was a current Queens native who missed living in his hometown in northern New Jersey (I know what that’s like since I am a Jersey outsider at my home church in Queens!). He then went on to share that tomorrow was his day off because he was going with his wife to get a sonogram. He was a new husband and now a soon-to-be new father. He told me how he’s been working extra hard, always eating on the go, because he wants to provide for his new and growing family.
Finally we reached our destination, and I thanked him for helping me out and for sharing his story with me. I gave him a very generous tip to just bless him and to love on him. He was extremely grateful, and that was that… I didn’t pray for him. I didn’t share the Gospel with him. He didn’t breakdown in tears. I just blessed him. I just loved to love him.
I realized so often I do loving things to get a result. A result that’s all about me! I love people to get a testimony. I love people to get them to believe in God, but if truthfully, often times it’s more about me than it is about them and them needing to know God. Now if God is leading you to pray for someone, you should pray! If God is leading you to share the Gospel, you obey! But sometimes we are called to just love with no strings attached. To love with no other agenda except to love. We celebrate the great big moments that lead to something dramatic while forgetting to realize that loving people with no other reason except to love is the way God loves us. He doesn’t love us to get us do something. God doesn’t say “I am now loving you so that you can go fulfill the Great Commission.” The truth is God doesn’t need me to fulfill anything or do anything, but He chooses to lavish His love for no other reason than I am simply His. He delights to just love. And that’s the way I want to learn how to love people. People I know really well and people I might just run into on the streets. To love all unconditionally.
Let us be people who love others well. Not with an agenda, not with a result in mind, but to love just to love.