Mercy

Excerpt taken from Billy Graham's book entitled-"Storm Warning."
He spent some time with Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
These are his words describing that meeting.

"When I was introduced to her, she was ministering to a dying person,
holding him in her arms. I waited while she helped him face death.
When he died, she prayed quietly, gently lowered him to his bed,
and turned to greet me."
"We talked till dusk that day. I was surprised to learn how much she knew about me and about our crusades. In her lilting, broken English she asked if I would like to hear some of her experiences with the hungry and the dying. Very simply,
she explained her calling to me. Mother Teresa looks past the physical features of
every needy man, woman, or child, and she says that she sees the face of Jesus
staring up at her through them. In every starving child she feeds, she sees Jesus. Around every sick and frightened woman she cares for, she sees Jesus. Surrounding every lonely, dying man she cradles in her arms is Jesus. When she ministers to anyone, she is ministering to her Savior and Lord."

This would change my life if I did this.
But there is no one dying in poverty around me.

But the frightened are poor in courage...
The unkind are poor in love...
The prideful are poor in security...
The rejected are poor in peace...

Can I look in the faces of the disillusioned around me and see the face of Jesus?
Can I look in the face of one who has wounded me with caustic words and see the face of Jesus?
Can I look in the faces of my children when they have shaken my trust in their judgment and see the face of Jesus?
Can I look at the poverty-stricken faces of the frightened, the unkind, the prideful, the rejected and give them the same love and grace that God gives me when He looks at my poverty-stricken face and sees Jesus?

"Whatever you have done to the least of these my brethren, that you have done for me," takes on a whole new meaning when the least of these has the false appearance of being the 'best of these.'
Even 'the best of these' can be sick of heart, starving for love, needy, frightened and lonely.
Even 'the best of these' needs us to see Jesus when we look at them.