The theme for this year’s Share-A-Thon is “Everyday Heroes.”
Now, I’m sure we all have a pretty good idea of what an “Everyday Hero” is in that we think of them as people who go out and do their job serving other people and making the world a better place each day without a lot of fanfare or hoopla.
An everyday hero could be a teacher, a fire-fighter, a pastor, a police officer, a nurse, a doctor, a veterinarian, a mom, someone stocking the shelves at the local grocery store, an auto mechanic, a garbage truck driver, a plumber, an electrician, a bookkeeper, an administrative assistant, a radio announcer, or just about anyone. (Although blog writers are very far down on the list indeed.)
We are all essential in the operation of a functioning society. We are all needed in some way.
Even people who do not have “normal” jobs can be everyday heroes.
Certainly, the world would be a very different place indeed without grandparents.
The volunteers who serve on the Kinship Christian Radio Prayer Line are heroes who do battle with the forces of darkness. And, it’s safe to say that the Kinship ministry would not exist without them.
Whenever you lift up, support, and encourage another human being you are an everyday hero. Whenever you speak a positive, helpful word to someone else, you are an everyday hero.
Human beings cannot exist without the love of other human beings. Babies who are not held and cuddled and loved will suffer from a condition called, “Failure to Thrive.”
It’s a legitimate, quantifiable need that human beings have even into adulthood.
That’s why the worst punishment they can give you in prison is solitary confinement.
We were created for a reason, and it is to love and to be loved.
It is the highest, most noble, most essential attribute of the human race.
But it is not confined to loving one another. For if we do not love God, we find ourselves trying to fill the emptiness with all manner of dark and unholy things that seem good at the time but leave us hanging from a cross in the darkness we have created for ourselves until we are utterly alone and forsaken.
The one thing everyday heroes all have in common with one another is that they do not think of themselves as everyday heroes. They do not wear a cape or a mask. They do not wear colorful tights emblazoned with a cool logo. They don’t even have special coffee mugs just for Everyday Heroes.
And it’s because love does not think of itself first. It is not proud or boastful. It is not self-seeking.
Love gives, but it does not give up.
Yes, love is humble.
It does not seek to be a clanging gong or a crashing cymbal.
It can stand accused and make no defense for itself. Love can wear a crown of thorns, be beaten and mocked, be nailed to a cross, and look down and forgive.
Love can be buried in a tomb, but nothing can stop it from rising again.
No, Jesus was not an everyday hero.
He came to an everyday life and he walked the everyday roads with everyday people, but He was the ultimate hero because He had the ultimate weapon: The love of God Himself.
And He promised that this same love would come to live in us. And it is our seal, our guarantee, of what is to come–when we go from being everyday heroes to eternal heroes.
Today’s Praise
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 1 John 3:11