Let’s open our eyes to those standing on the outside looking in: the newcomer, the grieving, the lonely, and the displaced. Let’s ask Jesus to help us see Him in every face we meet.
Maybe it’s a new job, a new town, or you were the new student. Sometimes you see others in the room with heads leaning in toward each other quietly asking who YOU are? Not necessarily unkind words or facial expressions, just curious how it is that YOU showed up in their midst. “Oh,” someone may say, “that’s the new girl or guy, I think they just moved here.” No one really approaches you, maybe a coworker or teacher will introduce you to a few people or even make a broad announcement of introduction to everyone. How do you feel? Anxious? A bit jittery? Uncomfortable and embarrassed to be the focus of everyone’s attention? Others in the room may shake your hand and offer quick words of welcome and then move on to friends and those they are comfortable with.
Then a genuine, kind smiling face excuses themselves from a laughing group and moves in your direction, smiling directly at you. They introduce themselves, ask your name, and your story—where you came from, what brought you here. They invite you to join their friends, sharing little glimpses of each person’s interests and best attributes, intentionally connecting you to themselves and others. They don’t stop there. They invite you to a meal, a Bible study, a gathering. Suddenly, the anxiety in your chest loosens. Hope flickers. You feel seen, valued, wanted, like you belong.
Now imagine being the stranger in a far more desperate sense—a refugee, forced to flee from everything familiar… from home. Your town destroyed, your family scattered, your language foreign in this new land. You’ve slept in temporary shelters, endured hunger and cold, clung to faith when fear tried to take over. And when you finally arrive in a safe place, weary and broken, wouldn’t your heart rejoice to meet a kind face—one radiant with compassion, one that says without words, you are not forgotten?
Jesus shared it this way in Matthew 25: 37-40: “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’”
Let’s open our eyes to those standing on the outside looking in: the newcomer, the grieving, the lonely, and the displaced. Let’s ask Jesus to help us see Him in every face we meet.
Don’t you want to offer that warm smile, that extended hand, or that genuine heart that makes a stranger feel at home? Because when we love the stranger, we are loving Christ Himself—and there is no greater gift we could offer.
Amie Hubbard is family ministries director for Michigan Conference.
