Everybody's A Grand Canyon

Currently listening to "Something's Missing (A Capella)"- Brandy


I remember doing the Shoal Creek Community Church internship the summer of 2004 and hearing Roy Moran say (paraphrased)," Everybody is a Grand Canyon. Your story is so deep and wide." Think about it. The Grand Canyon is HUGE! I've never been there, but I can imagine in my head: this huge stretch of land and rock with a very large, dense canal so deep that I can't see the bottom. Have you ever thought about you and other people being so deep you can't see the bottom?

Have you ever been to an airport and people watched? I enjoy it. I know it sounds creepy, but I can't lie. I do it everytime I'm in a place packed with peopole (i.e- malls, airports, churches, work out facilities, busy streets) For some odd reason this past year, I flew like 6 or 7 times. I spent alot of time in airports alone, people watching. Now there's an art to this, or else you just look like a weirdo staring at people. Where are they going? Where did they come from? What's their story? The mind is funny. At least mine is anyway. It makes silly assumptions by what your eyes take in and what your ears hear, which is never really accurate.

Do you remember ever seeing that Kleenex commercial with the guy who grabbed a couch and just planted it on the side walk in some city, I'm gonna say New York. He just sat there and waited for someone to sit down and talk. I'm sure he learned things about people that he would've never known just by looking at them. You never really heard any of the conversations, but you could tell by the laughter and tears that he was learning so much about these random people. I think all these people needed was an opportunity to share themselves with someone else.

What if we approached life in that way. It may not be ideal to grab a couch and plant it somewhere, but what if we assumed that the people around us had a story to tell. I know I always appear to be well put together, happy and on cloud 9, but that usually isn't the case. I struggle with things, I isolate myself sometimes, I'm not responsible all the time, I'm selfish. There's many things about me that people don't know about. But you can only assume what you see and sometimes hear about me.

I always think about the woman at the well (see John 4). This Samaritan woman thought she had a clue as to who she was talking to; some snobby Jewish man who wasn't supposed to be talking to her in the first place. All along it was Jesus who was offering her the best thing her life needed; living water and a chance to be in the best relationship she could ever have. (Side note: she had 5 ex-husbands and was living with a guy she wasn't married to......grand canyon!) Place yourself in Jesus' shoes at that moment. He asked this woman for water, a Samaritan woman. Jews and Samaritan's didn't have conversations let alone be in the same place together. Also, she was a woman. Men and women didn't just shoot the breeze like that. Women were considered nothing. Jesus, like he does best, broke the social norm and talked to her, took a chance and had a life changing encounter with this woman.

Now, I'm as guilty as the next person. I judge people. I assume things about people. My friend Derek Poe and I had such wrong assumptions about each other when we first met. Now we're good friends because we took a chance to ask the question, "What's your story?" So when you see that weird guy at work, ask yourself the question and then ask him. When you see that girl who always seems to be upset ask yourself the question and then ask her. You're gonna learn things you never knew. Everybody's a Grand Canyon. Everybody has a story. What's theirs? What's yours?

Just something that was on my heart today.