Read Romans 8:28

Our world has become a large, impersonal, busy affair.

Social media and the technological age have caused us to become alienated from each other. We’re connected but not in community. No longer do neighbours visit across the backyard fence, chat in the driveway, or catch up on the kids at the mailbox. Those days are long gone. Our well-manicured front lawns and meticulously landscaped perimeters have become modern-day moats that keep barbarians at bay. Hoarding and flaunting have replaced sharing and caring. It’s like we are occupying common space but have no common interests, as if we’re on an elevator with rules such as: “No talking, smiling, or eye contact allowed without written consent of the management.”

Painful though it may be for us to admit, we’re losing touch with one another. The motivation to help, to encourage, yes, to serve our fellow human beings is waning. People have even observed crimes in progress but refused to help so as not to be involved! Our foundational values are getting lost in these confusing days. And yet it is these things that form the essentials of a happy and fulfilled life.

Listen to God’s vision for our lives:

We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28)

Maybe you’ve never stopped to consider what “His purpose” is. Briefly put, God is committed to one major objective in your life: to conform you into “the image of His Son.” One of the many ways I’ve seen Him do that is through interaction with others.

He’s up to something by placing you in a small group at church with a family with a special-needs son, or forcing you to work closely with an office manager whose life is coming unglued. Those interactions may be awkward, even unpleasant at times, but they could be what God’s up to in forming you into the image of His Son.

Consider today how you might join God in that purpose. Make yourself available as a dispenser of His kindness, a giver of His grace to someone who might need both.

Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord...Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.