Lives Touching Ours for Good – December 31, 2000
We have nothing to give that we didn’t first receive from someone else. If we were to rummage down into ourselves like we were searching through an old chest, we would find—people, so many people who have helped make us who we are: mother, father, sisters, brothers, friends. God has made us who we are through others.
No blessing’s trail can be traced very far back without running into someone’s gift to us. There’s the parent who lavished love and tenderness, the teacher who lifted and inspired us, the friend who changed discouragement into hope. They’re the ones who go about the doing of earthly things in a heavenly manner.
Small acts of kindness freely given can transform lives far from the giver. One cold day at the turn of the century in London, an American visitor lost his way in a dense fog. Frustrated, he stopped under a street lamp to figure out where he was and how he could get to his appointment on time. A boy approached him, and asked if he could be of some help. When he found out the man needed to find a certain address in the city, the boy offered to take him there. The offer was gratefully accepted. When they got to the destination, the visitor reached into his pocket for a tip, but the boy stopped him. “No, thank you, sir. I am a Scout. I won’t take anything for helping you.” So impressed was the man by this act of service, that upon his return to the United States, he got together with some of his business associates, and they formed a scouting program that was later to involve countless boys.1 That good turn by a young English lad still blesses a host of others.
The blessings that come to us from those we know, and those we don’t, live on and bring God closer.
Program #3724
1. See William D. Murray, The History of the Boy Scouts of America (New York: Boy Scouts of America, 1937), 25.