Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back

Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

It was late and we were driving home from an event when my dear friend Sally told me about a conversation with an Uber driver that she could not forget. She grew up in the community that we currently live in and over the years has seen a change in the population. Because she was unfamiliar with the new groups of people coming into town, she was afraid.

While recently on a work trip to an unfamiliar city, she had to take a ride back to the airport alone, and the man driving the Uber was of the same nationality of the population that has moved to our community. Sally told me she was overwhelmed by his kindness and friendliness to her over the twenty-minute drive to the airport. He asked her about her family, told her about his, made jokes about the city they were in, and wondered with concern if she’d be able to get lunch before her flight. She was taken aback at his sincere and honest approach to her. And this had gotten her thinking since she returned home that maybe she could be more open in her community to people who are different than she is.

I sat and listened to her story as I nodded in acknowledgment of all that she was feeling and thinking. “I think that is where we all start,” I stated, “just being willing to be open to others.”

Days later, I was still thinking about the impact one man had on my friend in just a twenty-minute car ride. We never know what our simple acts of extending friendship to others may have on them, even breaking down stereotypes or barriers in their minds and hearts. We can all be intentional, as this Uber driver was, to be friendly and hospitable to the people we meet each day. All people are invited into God’s family, and because this is true, we needn’t fear people who look different from us.

— Kendra

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Be friendly with a person or people group you have previously disliked or even feared.