Walker or His Workmanship?

“But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do His work and speak out for Him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted. -1 Peter 2:9 (MSG)

Have you seen The Walking Dead? It’s a weekly sci-fi series where a disease has taken over an entire city, spreading to the nearby countryside, killing people and then bringing them back to life, if you want to call it that.  Only a ravenous hunger to suck the life out of any living thing that comes close gives them a semblance of existence…they are the Walking Dead.

Survivors have formed a makeshift family as they work to escape, and protect each other from, the walkers. Finding refuge in a countryside farm, they discover Doctor Herschel, the owner, is sheltering walkers in his barn.  In a heated discussion, his daughter, Maggie, asks her new-found friend, Glenn, not to call them walkers. “What do you call them?” he asks.  Insisting they are people, she adamantly replies “I call them mom, Mrs. Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Stephens.” Family, neighbors, local business owners, once loved and accepted, now rejected to nothingness.

Thanksgiving morning I get to go downtown and help feed the homeless.  Some people scoff, calling them rejects, crackheads or the professional homeless who work the system, sucking the life out of the living. I want to know their names and call them Steve, Trent, Mrs. Perkins, or whatever their name is because I know Jesus knows their name. To Him, they are not rejects or walkers, they are His creation, fearfully and wonderfully made – His divine workmanship. His heart breaks for them. He longs to be their shelter and refuge. His blood poured out to redeem them, as it did for us when He called us from the shadows to His light to “speak out for Him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made” for me and for you.

Who will you cross paths with this Thanksgiving that you would prefer to ignore or even hide from?  (You know, the one who just always seems to suck the life out of every living thing they come in contact with.)

Will you see him or her as a walker or His workmanship?

Will you speak out for Him?

Father God, it is so easy to forget that, were it not for your limitless grace, we, too, would be walkers. We praise You for lifting us up from the pit of darkness into your glorious light and ask that you give us the courage and the words to speak out for You. May Your light and love shine through us to infuse your works of art we meet in Your gallery of life. –In our Beautiful Creator Jesus’ name, Amen.