Welcome back to Beliefnet’s exclusive Bill Hybels devotional, “Living with Grander Vision.” This feed will appear in your profile every day for three full weeks. Did you miss any entries? Just stay subscribed, and the feed will begin again at the end of its cycle.
When I was in my early twenties, my mentor Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian told me that true followers of Christ–the ones who really get it right–give themselves to people. That’s all they want. They want to know people, they want to serve people, and they want to love people. They want to use their money and their energies and their every last resource to help people who might need a hand, an ear, a friend. They want to be available to people, they want to listen to people, they want to point people toward faith in God, and then they want to help them grow and mature.
It’s not at all what I wanted at twenty-two. Had those who knew me well been polled, they would have said I wanted money. And success in the business endeavor I was involved in at the time. (Lots of success, preferably.) I had no idea what a small vision I was chasing until Dr. B’s words wound their way around my heart.
These days, what I want most is to be a true follower of Christ–the kind who’s people-loving and people-serving. If those who knew you best were polled, what would they say you most want? How accurate would they be? How would their answers differ from ones that might have been given at the beginning of your spiritual formation?
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Think about someone you know who is a people person, in the way Dr. B described. Which of their characteristics can you adopt, if only for today? Tell God why you want those things to be true of your life, and then trust him to give you an opportunity or two to put people first.