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January 12′s Our Daily Bread was interesting to me. In that entry, Julie Ackerman Link says that people often stop her friend Anna on the street when they are looking for directions, and Julie goes into different reasons for this: that Anna looks honest and trustworthy, that she looks like she knows where she’s going, and that she attracts the lost. Julie then goes on to say that, spiritually-speaking, believers have purpose and direction, in that they know where they’re going and how to get there. Julie states that “When this kind of confidence is evident to others, the lost will look to us for direction.”
One reason that this entry stood out to me was that people have often asked me for directions on the street, and I don’t know why. Usually, I don’t know the answers to their questions. But maybe they ask me because I have an innocent-looking face and, because I wear glasses, I look like a brainy sort of person who might be able to give them directions.
Another reason that the entry stood out to me is that I’ve admired the motif of Christians being able to offer wholesome, reasonable advice to the rest of the world. I once watched a late-night movie on the Trinity Broadcasting Network about a high school student who wished that he had never become a Christian and got to see what he and his high school would be like without his Christian witness. When he was a Christian, he offered a jock helpful advice about relationships—-advice about listening, about love, about honesty, etc. In the alternative reality in which he was not a Christian, however, he was messing around with the jock’s girlfriend, and so the jock was trying to kill him!
I think also about the testimony of Michael Landon’s second wife, Lynn (the mother of Michael Landon, Jr.): Lynn came to Christ on account of her hairdresser, who imparted to Lynn a lot of good advice and wisdom that she gained from her relationship with Christ. I like the concept of Christianity being reasonable and sensible in the real world—-something that can help people to look at life in a positive way and to deal with their problems responsibly. So often, Christianity has not struck me as overly reasonable. Maybe that’s (at least partially) because I tend to leave out common-sense when I approach it.
