[willowbrook] FW: Bruised Apples

[Taylor, Doug]

----Original Message----

Bruised Apples

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales
convention in Chicago.  They had assured their wives that they
would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner.  Well,
as such things go, one thing led to another.  The sales meeting
lasted longer than anticipated.    

Their flights were scheduled to leave out of Chicago's O'Hare
Airport, and they had to race pell mell to the airport.  With
tickets in hand, they barged through the terminal to catch their
flight back home.  In their rush, with tickets and brief-cases,
one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which
held a display of baskets of apples.  Apples flew everywhere.     

Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the
plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.  All but one.  He
paused, took a deep breath and experienced a twinge of compassion
for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.  He told his
buddies to go on without him and told one of them to call his
wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his
taking a later flight.      

Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over
the floor. He was glad he did.  The 16-year-old girl at the apple
stand was totally blind!  She was softly crying, tears running
down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly
groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her,
no one stopping or to care for her plight.     

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples,
put them into the baskets, and helped set the display up once
more.  As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become
battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.  When
he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl,
"Here, please take this $20 for the damage we did.  Are you
okay?"  She nodded through her tears.  He continued on with, "I
hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."       

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl
called out to him, "Mister..."  He paused and turned to look back
into those blind eyes.  She continued, "Are you Jesus?"  

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered.  Then slowly he made
his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and
bouncing about in his  
soul:

 "Are you Jesus?"


* * * * * * *

Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's our destiny, is it not?
To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference
as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love,
life and grace.  If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk
and act as He would.  Knowing Him is more than simply quoting
Scripture and going to church.  It's actually living the Word as
life unfolds day to day.      

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been
bruised by a fall.  He stopped what He was doing and picked you
and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our
damaged fruit.