“Go and make customers!” he says to them…

And gives them handfuls of samples…

They’re new employees.

Their job?

To stand outside the store entrance from the mall…

And use the samples to bring people into the store.

Mall foot traffic is usually high.

But it’s Monday morning…

The temperature is below zero…

And there are blizzard warnings for later.

They stand in the semi-silence of the mostly empty mall.

A loud ding announces a text message on one sampler’s phone.

He looks around to see if the manager is nearby.

The manager is nowhere in sight.

Setting down his samples, he reaches for his phone…

And starts to text.

Soon…

His fellow “sample-passer-outer” does the same thing.

There they stand…

Faces buried in their screens.

Thumbs tapping out messages.

Totally lost in their own worlds.

Forgetting their original mission to attract customers…

They now stand like twin sentinels…

Blocking the entrance to the store.

Seeing them, my first reaction is to feel smugly superior.

“I’d never do that!” I think.

But then I realize I’m guilty of doing the exact same thing every day…

For Jesus tells us…

…go and make disciples … Matthew 28:19

It sounds exciting…

Until I meet resistance…

Meet indifference…

Until I get totally involved in my own life…

And then I stand…

Like a sentinel blocking the entrance…

Forgetting the mission to which I was called…

To which we all are called…

… go and make disciples … Matthew 28:19

Reminded of my weakness…

I thank God for His strength…

And remember anew that the invitation rests not on me or my works…

But on God and His grace…

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  2 Corinthians 12:9

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16