The World Needs What You’ve Got

August 5, 2022 Leslie Ann Jones

Pictured: Let Your Light Shine Bright Vinyl Sticker

After perhaps the busiest summer ever (that led to an unplanned two-month hiatus from e-mail and social media), I sent our girls off to school this morning with the same prayer I’ve been speaking over them for years. The specific words vary from day to day, but the gist is always the same:

That the Lord would bless them, protect them from harm, and bring them back home safe each day. That he would still their anxieties and surround them with good friends. That he would help them to learn and grow and thrive at school. And that he would fill them with light, love, hope, goodness, joy, kindness, and peace to share with their classmates, teachers, and friends.

We're grateful to live in an amazing school district with some of the best teachers and administrators on earth, but even so, school can be a dark and scary place at times—just like the outside world—and every morning when I pray for our girls, I'm reminded of this one simple truth: the world needs what we've got.

All believers, no matter the age or stage of life, are called to share the light of Christ wherever we go. To be radiant beacons of hope and love in an otherwise dark and lonely world. To do good, choose joy, share kindness, and be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people around us. From classmates to coworkers, their presence in our lives is no accident. It has been ordained by God himself.

I tell our daughters that God's purpose for our lives may sometimes lead us on grand and exciting adventures, but it may also be as simple as sharing your cookies at lunch, including the kid who's always left out, or helping someone with their math homework.

It may not seem like much at the time, but small acts of kindness have a way of sticking with people, and they often mean more than we realize in the moment. You never know what God will do with a few loaves of bread and a handful of fish.

So today, let's be the people that he created us to be. Let's share his light and love wherever we go with whoever we meet, treating each new face as a divine appointment that was simply meant to be. To God be the glory. Amen and amen.