Help Us See

From the Salvation Army, you're listening to Wonderful Words of Life. Well, welcome back, everybody. It is a privilege to have you joining us on this very first episode, series 189, and we've got a new guest in the studio. Please welcome Captain Jimmy Taylor.

Hey. Jimmy serves the Salvation Army as an officer in Hagerstown, Maryland. I think you would call Atlanta kind of home, though, right?

Yeah, Atlanta's home. And to our listeners who might just be joining us for the first time, this is where we record the series, but it goes all over the world. So, Jimmy, you don't get any frequent flyer points for this episode, but we're glad that you're with us. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm really excited. I'm assuming since you're here, you survived Christmas as a Salvation Army officer.

Yeah, we met our goal and we served a lot of people that were hurting and we're really excited about the things that the Lord's got in store this coming year. And it's a little cold up in Hagerstown, Maryland, isn't it? So cold. It's miserable. I miss the South so much. I hate the snow.

I'm just ready. One day, one day I will come back to the glory of Georgia. That's right. Well, it's for those of you that may not be familiar with the geography. So Hagerstown, Maryland is right at about what the United States calls the Mason-Dixon line. So you have a lot of folks from the north and some folks from the south.

And what Jimmy's saying is he just wants to get on back to south because there's a lot more sunshine in the southern part of the United States than there is in the middle or to the northern part of the United States. Well, we're glad you're here. And we've got a new series going on that we want to talk to you about. Frankly, our friends, Rob and Heather Dolby, who you've already heard from on this program, are coming back with a series called The Least of These. And I don't know if that kind of phrase even speaks to you, Jimmy, but when I think of that, I often think of that great Bible story where Jesus says, you know, even to the least of these, as if you've done it unto me.

How does that kind of ring with you? Well, I think a lot of times we see the least of these and we have this mental picture of what that looks like, right? We have this picture of, we'll say, of a bum laying on the street, no ambition of life, dealing with some sort of addiction, no motivation, just existing. And the fact of the matter is the least of these doesn't really paint that.

What is the least of these? Well, the least of these is anyone, because you have issues. I have issues. We have emotional scars. We have baggage that we carry.

We have problems and pains and brokenness in our life. And I think that lends itself to really paint everybody as one of the least of these. Absolutely.

And I think that's what Jesus is really saying is that person and you and your family and your dad and your colleague are all part of the least of these. What are you doing to minister them and show them the love of God? Yeah.

I had the privilege of going to Hagerstown last year with our choir, the territorial songsters and Jimmy and his wife, Ashley were happy to host us, but they were very busy and the work of the salvation army in that community, not just running a church that meets together on Sundays, but running a facility that meets the needs of people in Jesus name, both practically and spiritually as well. Yeah. So it's a busy place. We stay very busy. Yeah. I always like to say, man, it's like a campus.

You have several buildings on that facility on the, on those grounds. And I cannot imagine that responsibility, Jimmy, but I appreciate you taking time to be with us this week. Thank you.

I appreciate it. And for this series, this series felt like it made a lot of sense coming off of our mental health series, followed by our Christmas series, caring for the least of these is such a huge part of why the salvation army exists and really should be a huge part of any Christian's ministry. We're joined by salvation army officers, Rob and Heather Dolby, as they share their experiences and passion for mission work. They are such a special couple who are doing amazing things for the kingdom. And I know you'll be blessed by their stories. So Jimmy pay attention.

We're going to have to talk about this next week. This is captain Rob Dolby. And I'm captain Heather Dolby. And we have the privilege to serve in the United States Southern territorial headquarters as territorial mission specialists with the salvation army here in the United States. So Luke chapter 10, we get to this point where Jesus is in this beautiful narrative place and he's weaving together all these stories. And of course we know the story of the good Samaritan. We've heard it in Sunday school on the felt board many times. And for me, as we begin to talk about the least of these, this is a critical point in the gospel to just understand, you know, so often we want to serve God, understand what our calling is.

And I love it that the gospel just gives us just this practical walking out of love, embodied love, you know, being the hands and feet of Jesus. And in this story for me, it speaks of posture. So we get the story, right? So this guy gets beaten really bad. And as he's laying there, literally beaten so bad that he's dying, he's unrecognizable. All these guys start to walk by and we know the first one is a religious leader, Pharisee, a priest. And as he walks by, he sees, he sees and just immediately crosses the street and he's out of there.

Second guy comes along, which is not just the priest, but kind of the worship leader, the assistant, assistant leader in the temple. And he sees, but he doesn't only see and right away across the street, it says that he stops, he sees, and he kind of checks out the scene. He looks a little bit deeper and he sees the blood and the guts and the gore.

And then he chooses to move on. Then the third person comes, that's the Samaritan. And the Samaritan sees, he also stops to look and checks it out. But then the scripture says, he's moved with compassion. He sees, and he's moved with compassion.

So for me, this just speaks of posture where all three of these guys see this person in this horrible state, this brokenness, this person that's literally just been abused and beaten and is laying there dying. They all have eyes to see, but they all see in three different ways. The first guy that sees just immediately moves on, really doesn't feel anything at all. Second, guy sees, and he looks a little bit deeper. He kind of checks it out. But then the third guy, the Samaritan sees and immediately is moved with compassion.

So for me, it doesn't start at the moment. I think we can think sometimes that it's in the moment when we see the person, but I believe we can actually, because of our relationship with Christ, because of that daily living in him and being those hands and feet, it's actually a posture that we get to choose. We're going to see situations of brokenness. And I think the beginning of how we respond doesn't start in that moment, but actually starts with Jesus before that. So we can know Jesus so well and know the Holy Spirit so well that we know that we're ready so that when we do see these situations with brokenness, that we have the response that is a Christ-like response.

I really love that. I know we're going to talk about this in later episodes, but in this story, it doesn't come up what the guy was doing when he got beat. You know what I mean? Like, did he deserve it? Did he not?

Like, was someone just stealing back stuff he had stolen? Like, we don't even know his story because actually this idea of what must I do to inherit eternal life, which was how it all began with the expert in the law saying to Jesus, Hey, like, what do I do? You know, to experience this heaven on earth, you know, this eternal life. And it comes down to loving my neighbor, entering into their story. It comes down to not having to wrestle with, do they deserve this grace?

Do they deserve this me pouring out my life and my resources and my time on their behalf? Because the Samaritan, he was on his way somewhere. I am sure because people didn't just wander around like they were purposeful.

They had places to go. And he took his time aside from his business. He gave his money to the innkeeper, right? He stayed with the man and entered in like, we don't know who was waiting for him at home. Maybe it was a hot meal and his wife and kids. We don't even know. But he chose to give that away and put that aside for the sake of his neighbor and entering into that story. It cost him something.

Right. And I guess this idea of help me see, I want to share a story, which is Quita's story. Quita was a young lady, probably about 11 or 12 years old when we first met her in a tough neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. And Quita was one of the smartest kids, just one of those kids when you meet her. I mean, you just hear her for like five minutes and you're like, this girl's going to change the world.

There's just something on her life where you're just like, there's something here. Quita's issue was that she couldn't see. She wasn't blind, but literally Quita didn't have glasses. And Quita just struggled to do well in school because she couldn't see the board at the front.

She couldn't read these books that she could. She loved the story in them. And so we were able to work with Quita's public school and talk with the school nurse. And guess what? They had some funds available to help her get some glasses.

That's right. And I love that story, right? Because as Jesus encounters people like the blind see. And I know that she wasn't 100% blind, but like this idea of, you know, not only did we enter into her story, she entered into ours. And so because we were able to see her need, we were able to advocate on her behalf with the resources that we had access to, to get her those glasses, which changed everything for her. And when she put them on for the first time, she got to go pick them out herself, which was a big deal. She put them on for the first time, her face lit up. She began to write. She writes spoken words.

She wrote poetry that she would share in the congregation. And it was amazing. It was such an amazing moment until the next thing happened.

Right. So I remember that day where Quita kind of came back to the afterschool program and she just had this kind of disparaging look on her face. She really just looked like something had gone really wrong. And of course, you notice right away that Quita didn't have her glasses on. And, you know, we were kind of trying to be gentle with her.

Hey, Quita, how are you doing? And what happened with your glasses? And I remember she told us this story where she was so proud to go home and show her mom and show her all these books that she was reading and how well she was doing in school. And in that moment, her mom had taken her glasses and snapped them in half and said, you know, you don't need to be smart like those other kids.

I'm going to teach you how you keep a man and make some money in this world. You need to forget about those books. That's a hard moment walking alongside someone. Right. Because the truth is, is we couldn't change her story. And because we don't have the power for that.

There is one that does, though, and it's Jesus. And so in those moments, choosing to not be like, well, we got you one pair, so sorry your mom snapped them, but too bad, so sad. Like, I get that, like going back to the school and saying, hey, like, is there a way to get another voucher and can we make this happen again? And I think like the first moment when she got the first pair of glasses, that was beautiful. But the second pair of glasses that she got, that was a miracle because despite the brokenness in her life, not even the stuff that she was in control of the stuff that she wasn't even in control of, God still provided. What does that leave us with? It leaves us with this idea that to inherit eternal life or to experience a bit of heaven on earth, we need to lean in to the people around us because Jesus loved people. And when we do that, it means coming near to brokenness, which is hard.

It's hard work. And maybe it costs us something. But we can remember that someone came close to us and it changed everything.

It changed our world. So join us next week as we continue this conversation and we're going to look at compassion, Jesus eating with sinners and then feeding the 5,000. And I think, aren't we going to hear a little bit of your story, Rob? You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for Wonderful Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life.