I was touched this week when I watched a video of Carlos Whittaker trying to make a music video. The video shows them setting up to shoot his video and the beginning of him singing his song “God of Second Chances”. Not long after he started singing, a homeless man walks onto the set in front of the cameras to listen. Instead of stopping the song and asking him to leave because he’s messing up the shoot, Carlos sings to the man. After a few seconds, the man kneels and begins to cry. Not long after that, he joins in on the song and freestyles a new verse.
It’s a beautiful video to watch, but it challenged me as a Christian and a person. I’m a perfectionist and want things to happen the way I imagine them. I’m quick to bulldoze people that get in the way of what I’m trying to do or who mess it up. I rarely look at them the way Carlos looked at this man. He didn’t quit playing and ask him to get off the set. He didn’t pout and say, “Dude, you’re ruining this.” Instead, he turned away from the camera and played for an audience of one. He was sensitive enough to God’s spirit to recognize this man needed the song more than he needed to record it.
I’m sure you’ve read similar circumstances of a homeless man walking into a church and sitting in the aisle. People started to murmur and complain. Finally one went to a deacon and asked him to do something. The deacon walked up to the man and sat beside him for the rest of the sermon. Another story I heard of was how a prostitute in Vegas went into a church and got saved. She was so excited, she brought several other prostitutes the next week. The people in the church were worried about their teenage boys and husbands. They told the pastor, “Do something or they’re going to wreck what we’ve got here. They’re going to mess things up.” The preacher said, “I hope they wreck us.”
You see, hearing these stories and watching this video are reminders to me that I’m not that different from the Pharisees. I like to think I am, but in these situations, I would have acted just like them. I wouldn’t have had the patience of Carlos, the sincerity of the deacon or the audacity of that pastor to look beyond the physical to see the spiritual needs. I let my schedule, my dreams, my ideas, my visions and my preconceived notions override the spirit of God in me. I get caught up in trying to do everything right for God, that I forget to do what’s right for God. Jesus spent a lot of His time doing things that upset people with my mindset trying to show them another way.
My prayer today is that God would wreck me and you. May He blast through the things that keep us from really seeing what He’s called us to do. May He tear down our dreams of perfectionism. And may He open our eyes to the lost who need us to be Jesus to them. I hope that each of us will look past the religious ways to do things and start meeting the needs of those that walk onto our set, sit in our aisles and bring their out of place friends into our lives. I don’t want to do things the way I want to do them anymore. I want to do them the way God wants to do them. I want to be more like Jesus in meeting the needs of others and less like the Pharisees. Thankfully, we serve the God of Second Chances and He will help me.
Click here to watch the video I’m talking about.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 