No random Savior

“Anyone who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.”  Job 6:14 NIV

“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”  Ephesians 2:6-7 NIV

     A big part of our family history includes the loss of our daughter Jordyn.  I often write about her and the impact of her death.  I am not intentionally dwelling on it.  It simply is our life.    Some of that impact is painful.  But some of it is still beautiful, in spite of the loss. 

     Thinking back, I remember the day when I realized we were getting close to marking the one-year milestone.  It was almost unimaginable.  Now we are approaching 16 years since she left this earth, which is how long she was here, which is far more unimaginable.  But as we approached the first anniversary, we wanted to find some way to mark the day.  Someone suggested a Random Act of Kindness Day, suddenly we had a path. 

     For our random act, we picked a family we knew who had young kids with a backyard that looked a little like the Sahara desert – dry and empty.  We decided to fix that.  I do not remember how we found it, but we secured the donation of a slide/fort and some money to buy a swing set. 

     I remember when we got to their house with everything loaded.  Their back yard did not have a gate big enough, but the fence itself was in such bad shape we just sort of leaned on it.  It fell over, which pointed out another act we needed to accomplish.  We dropped a fully assembled fort in their yard and they had no idea we were coming until they heard the commotion outside.  We put the swing set together and dropped sand into their new sandbox.  The desert looked much more kid friendly by the time we left. 

     While we were working on this, someone walked up and asked me for the keys to my truck.  A friend and his kids wanted to wash and wax the big black truck I drove as their random act.  It was a pretty cool random act to receive.  We had no idea how many people participated or what acts of kindness had “randomly” occurred.  It was a great day.

     A short time later we received two books in the mail, we know who sent one of them, but to this day we have no idea who send the other.  The first was a very thick book that contained all of the Facebook posts from her page for the entire year, literally thousands of posts from hundreds of people.  It was breathtaking. 

     The second book contained a published description of a large number of random acts that occurred that day.  We have stories of everything from someone receiving a large jar of pickles on their front porch – seriously, I guess someone knew they liked pickles.  We heard about helping a friend buy a new mattress, deliveries of beef, yards being mowed, drive through meals paid for, parent to child relationships changing, people making cakes for neighbors, people gathering to pray for us that day and a long list of other acts.  One teacher wrote about acting out the book “I’ll love you forever” in her classroom.  My wife loves that book.

     What I learned from that day is that “random” acts are really only random for the receiver.  They actually require planning.  That anniversary was the motivation for the theme that day.  But we heard stories of families sitting at the supper table talking about things they could do, planning them, and then doing them – together.

     I have learned that if I want to blow through a day without noticing anything but my “to do” list, I can.  But why would I want that?  No one can be equipped to meet every need they see.  But you will see need if you have eyes to see.  There are people in our town who are hungry, cold, and broken – in life, in spirit and in finances.

Does your “to do” list include preparing for the random act you may encounter?  You cannot give someone a drink if you don’t have any water bottles in your car. 

Are you aware that you either are or will be someone’s random act?  God uses us in both plenty and in want. 

Challenge:  The ultimate random act of kindness occurred when Jesus did not stop those soldiers from nailing Him to that cross when it would have been so easy for Him to do so.  Think about it, God revealed that He would send a Savior long before Jesus was born.  There was a plan.

I used to look at the cross as being meant for everyone in total, all at one time.  But more importantly, as hard as it is for me to understand, Jesus died for my sin, specifically mine.  He died specifically for you too and it was anything but random.

Rick Claiborn