call out the gold

I recently had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a man named Pastor John who is from Uganda.  Pastor John is incredible; he is a church planter, has 20 kids, runs an organization that helps orphans, is sought-after by many pastors in several countries, has shepherded countless people in the faith...and yet still finds three days in his life to join a crazy group of white people for a safari in Kenya.

He's pretty cool.

He stands out to me as a truly exception person.  His humility is contagious.  He is always full of joy.  He relates so effortlessly to many kinds of people.  You'd think a man like him, when asked his prayer requests, would simply ask for wisdom to guide so many people, or something like that.

Which he did.  But as we parted ways a few months ago, do you know what else he asked prayer for?

That he would continue to meet new friends who could tell him things he didn't know about himself.

Oh. my. gosh.  It all made sense.  That's why we love honest compliments.  Why we love to look at pictures and videos of ourselves.  Why we ask for others' opinions about our looks, endeavors, personalities.  It's because we see "me" from a really close lens.  To you and me, self is the endless churning and changing of the ocean that looks so uniform and still from an onlooker miles away.  Our rushing thoughts burn so loudly in our ears that we fail to see the small percentage that actually make it out the door in one piece.

But to other people, well, they see the whole shabang.  They see Mount Rushmore from the road instead of from Teddy's nose.  Strangers get a really good sense of who "you" is even when you don't know who you are.  People who know us really well can count each and every stitch that makes up the fabric of our lives.  They might even know us better than we know ourselves, because they can analyze objectively when we can't.

Oh, how sweet it is to have people in your life who call out the gold in you when you're too close to see it.

"I love the way you smile; it always reminds me to take a deep breath and enjoy the moment." You've never thought twice about smiling; it's just what you do.

"Whenever you play the violin I can just feel the emotion in your music." You actually you feel pretty insecure about your violin skills.

You get the picture.

Be that person for someone.  When you see something, anything, good in someone, don't hesitate to tell them.  It might trigger the first positive thought they've had about themselves for a long time.

Or, like Pastor John, it might just fuel the fire that's already burning and help shape them into the person God made them to be.

You never know.