“I realized [God] called me — he has called each of us who follow Jesus — to make sure that no one goes unnoticed. In a crowd, where is the one who must not go unnoticed? Jesus loves everyone in the crowd, but the way he loves them is one at a time.”- Kyle Idleman
“Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling, and fell at [Jesus’s] feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.”- Luke 8:47 (NIV)
Kyle Idleman concludes Chapter 1 of One At a Time with his take on Luke’s account of the woman who’d been subject to bleeding for twelve years. Most significantly, the woman understood that the eyes of Jesus wouldn’t let her go unseen. Even when surrounded by that crushing crowd!
In addition, Pastor Idleman observes:
“When someone stood in front of Jesus, time stopped. Everything else in his life — all his concerns, his agenda, his goals — blurred and disappeared. He was always fully present. One at a time is the Jesus way of changing the world.”
Furthermore, there’s a famous video in which six people stand in a circle. Three wear white shirts and three wear black shirts. Next, the narrator instructs the viewer to count how many times the people wearing the white shirts pass two basketballs. However, for nine seconds in the middle of the video, a gorilla walks into the middle of the crown, thumps his chest, then steps off screen. Above all, when students at Harvard watched ‘Spot the Gorilla,’ half of them failed to notice that gorilla. Because they weren’t looking for it.
In conclusion, Kyle notes, forty times in the Gospels we read that Jesus saw. Thus, when Jesus encountered people, He saw God’s children. As a result, Kyle states, compassion happens when we see the crowd one person at a time. The essential ingredient? Praying for others.
Today’s question: How do you fulfill Jesus’s calling to make sure that no one goes unnoticed? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Compelled to do something – pray”
