Break your routine

I walked home a different way today.  It's amazing how many new things I saw.  Honestly, let's be real, it's not like I had gone to a different country, or even a different city - I was still in Gyeongju, South Korea, the same place I've been for the last 3 months.  I'm sure that the outside markets, and the street vendors, and the traditional rice cake and bread shops, and the toy stores, and the old men slowly, regally pedaling their bicycles in the middle of the road exist along my original route, too.  But I've never noticed them.

Isn't it amazing how a simple change of your routine can make you so much more aware of the world around you?  Normally I stick my headphones in my ears, settle my backpack on my back, and trudge home the exact same way, hardly even glancing up because I know the route so well.  But today I was awake, alert, and attentive to everything around me.  It was incredible.  And I refuse to think that my walk home was so much more interesting simply because I happened upon a more interesting way home.  No, there's a lesson to be learned here.

God calls us to serve the disadvantaged, and to invite the poor into our homes.  But how can we do that if we don't pay attention?  If we plug our ears and bury our heads in our chests and go about our daily business, entrenched in our own lives and routines, how will we ever know when the people around us need help?  How will we ever notice those in need?  The next time you wake up and realize that you haven't done anything out of your routine in a while, I challenge you to change that.  You'll be surprised by what you see.

Luke 14:7-14

⁷ When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸ “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹ If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. ¹¹ For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
 ¹² Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”