Feb 28, 20236 min read

Oh How Lovely It Is Pt. 1

To Meet Someone on The Way

After John the Baptist was beheaded, the scriptures say:

“When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out, He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them and healed their sick.” Matthew 14: 13-14

And it was after that when the multitudes met Him, instead of sending them away in search of food, He fed the 5,000 with bread and fish.

In the following chapter, Matthew writes that on the way to Tyre and Sidon, a woman met Jesus asking for His mercy to heal her demon-possessed daughter. And again, Jesus was moved with compassion and her daughter was healed.

Oswald Chambers writes, “what we call the process, God calls the end. . . It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God” (July 28).

It is a hidden truth weaved throughout scripture, background to the stories of grand miracles and Biblical heroes.

Lazarus was raised from the grave, but before that moment, Jesus stayed two extra days in the place where He was that the glory of God would be displayed in Lazarus’ revival.

And again, it happens when Peter asked Jesus to call him onto the water. While Peter was concerned with the destination of reaching Jesus on the water, Jesus was concerned with the faith produced in the process:

"But when he [Peter] saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, 'Lord, save me!'" Matthew 14:30

While we are concerned with where we are going, Jesus is concerned with what is produced within us on the way.

Tyler Staton, in his book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, elaborates on this concept:

“He [Jesus] retreated into the company of the Father from the noise of praise and criticism alike – escaping the clamor of the crowd in the face of objective success and apparent failure to listen instead to the still, small whisper of the Spirit.

Jesus was intentional, and yet he was equally interruptible.

Sure, he slipped away from the crowds, but he also allowed himself to be interrupted – mid-mission – to heal Bartimaeus on the outskirts of Jericho, a hemorrhaging woman in a crowd, and even to appreciate the faith of a Syrophoenician woman.

Jesus was intentional and interruptible. There’s a word for that posture:

unhurried.” (48)

Jesus lived life unhurried.

He welcomed the journey as the end most glorifying to His Father.

He met people on the way, and in meeting them, He was moved with compassion and blessed them abundantly.

In His unhurried life and interruptible nature, he not only paused to be with people, but paused to be with His Father. He continually sought the Will of the Father, that the Kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven.

When I reflect on an unhurried stature of life and the ability to meet someone on the way, many stories come to mind. The first, a young girl:

There was a loop I often ran throughout the village of Namuganga: six miles through the hills and valleys of the village. Throughout the journey, the uphill would get longer, and the downhills would get shorter. By the end I would remind myself, a chant of courage within my mind, that I do not run for time but for determination; I do not run for length, but for communion. By the time I approached the last 50-foot hill, I was tired and weary.

Every time I ran this loop, there was a young girl. I would find her digging with a hoe in hand in her families’ garden. She would stand by the path at the foot of the last hill. She would wait, and knowing I was tired and nearing the end, she would give me a high five as I passed.

But it wouldn’t end there.

When I would meet her and we clapped our hands together, she would begin to run with me up the last hill – 50 feet. She had her own work to do, her own purpose in being there, and every day I went past she chose to take the time to meet me on the way.

It was in her action that I was continually reminded, in my tired and weary, that Jesus too met people on the way. He was moved with compassion for them and had mercy upon them. He was moved - a verb initiating and compelling action to be taken. He was interrupted, but then again, he stopped - paused a moment to consider them. And then, the story goes, He blessed them.

He blessed them abundantly.

He healed their sick, revived their dying, cleansed their diseased. He fed the hungry, restored sight to blind eyes, and cared for the widow, the children, and the vulnerable.

Jesus, a man fully flesh and wholly God, lived a life most honoring and glorifying to God the Father. As a living and perfect sacrifice, He committed His life to the reconciliation of souls. But, before that moment lifeless on a tree, He daily experienced the crushing disparity of sin and the brokenness of all humanity. And in His complete humanity and equal Lordship, He stopped, in His greater mission of the redemption of the world and all of humanity, to be moved with compassion.

Again, and again, and again.

I had read the stories. In my yellow, daisy covered hand-held Bible, I underlined the words:

He was moved with compassion.

He had compassion on them.

He met them and He had compassion.

The black ink seeping through the pages, I stored the words in my heart - the actions and response of Jesus being interrupted and unhurried, and what it meant for the lives of those He met.

But I had yet to run into this compassion - a halting, unexpected, and daring act of mercy and love.

It was this young girl, who ran 50 feet with me up a small hill a few times a week, that shook me to the core.

Had I ever considered the practical, daily actions of stopping to meet people on the way? To be interruptible and moved with compassion? To have mercy upon them, and to bless them?

Had I ever thought once about the journey, rather than the end, as the most honoring to God? And what God is producing in the journey - the daily run of endurance and communion?

On September 6, 2022, I wrote:

We met on the way.

And truth be told, magic awaits when you meet on the way.

When you take the time to stop, to listen, to encourage, and to walk alongside, magic unfolds.

Magic, because that is what love does, and that is what Love did.

When life becomes about the journey, not the destination, and when even the journey crumbles in comparison to the people, love wins. Magic wins.

So take time, friends, and meet people on the way.

We were on an evening walk, sloping down past the muddy water well in the forest that parallels the road leading home, when we met two girls. I had seen them before, ran past them in the mornings, waved hi and goodbye in one fell swoop.

This evening they were carrying water back home, a common and daily occurrence. One carried a small jerry can, while the other carried two larger jerry cans. I knew where they lived, dwelling with their grandmother, a neighbor to Maama PooPoo.

I asked to help while simultaneously reaching for the third jerry can. The trail was familiar to me, yet more familiar to them. I had walked through the wooded path twice before, swerving through the eucalyptus trees in the company of a friend and a jaaja in our women’s crafting group. I knew after the forest would come a steep uphill on hard soil with dry ground on either side. Near the end, the path led through a banana plantation to the main road, leading us in opposite directions to our homes.

I took advantage and took hold of the opportunity to meet them on the way, to walk with them, and to bless them – even if only slightly in the daily mundane task of fetching water, that they might also know and experience a Greater Love, a more true Compassion.