When I was 19, I spent several weeks in Georgia, where most of the people around me spoke with an accent and said words like Y’all on a regular basis. After talking and listening and observing these wonderful people for some time, a funny thing happened: I began to talk like them. Once, when a new friend was introduced to me, I said, “Where y’all from?” I sounded ridiculous, I’m sure, as a person from the Pacific Northwest with no southern accent, but one thing was clear: I had spent time with people who talked differently than I did.

 

I also read about a professional baseball player who was the kind of athlete that other players just wanted to be around. He was the ace of his pitching staff and was consistently one of the top players in the entire league. He was incredibly talented, of course, but he also worked extremely hard, day in and day out. He continually prepared both his body and his mind so that he could perform at the highest possible level. Other players on the team loved to spend time with him. Being near him and observing how he trained was immensely valuable to his teammates. Many of those players said that being near him, watching him, and copying him made them better athletes.

 

In both of these situations, people were impacted immensely by those with whom they spent time. We see something like this in the Bible, in Acts chapter 4, verse 13, where we read the following: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

 

It was no compliment to say that Peter and John were unschooled, ordinary men. The Jewish leaders were taken aback by the courage of these two men, but they were not impressed with their backgrounds. What they did recognize was that the men had been with Jesus. Peter and John did not have the education, credentials, or religious pedigree that would have impressed those leaders. But they did have a courage that came from spending time with Jesus. Their behavior was not really from themselves, but resulted directly from being with Jesus.

 

You and I do not have the benefit of spending time with Jesus for three years of our physical lives on this earth (as the disciples did), but we can be shaped and changed by the Word that God has given us, to teach us how to live as Jesus did. When we allow the Bible to transform us, our lives carry the aroma of heaven. This means, among other things, that our lives are marked by a genuine love for God and for people, a true willingness to forgive others, and many other qualities such as joy, peace, humility, honesty, approachability, kindness under pressure, and truth-telling when it would be easier to lie.

 

May we be the people about whom others say, “Whenever he or she entered the room, I felt a little closer to heaven.” Let us be the ones who draw others closer to God whether we are talking or listening, laughing or crying, standing or sitting, following or leading.

 

We know that we’ve truly been with Jesus when we want what He wants and we put God’s will ahead of our own. This means that we’re all about discovering His will, rather than trying to impose our will on Him. We cannot rationalize and try to make God’s will match up with what we’ve already decided we want.

 

It reminds me of the old sailor who was repeatedly lost at sea, so his friends gave him a compass and urged him to use it. The next time he went out in his boat, he followed their advice and took the compass with him. But as usual, he became hopelessly confused and was unable to find land. Finally, he was rescued by his friends. Disgusted and impatient with him, they asked, “Why didn’t you use that compass we gave you? You could have saved us a lot of trouble!” The sailor responded, “I didn’t dare to! I wanted to go north, but as hard as I tried to make the needle aim in that direction, it just kept on pointing southeast.” That old sailor was so certain he knew which way was north that he stubbornly tried to force his own personal persuasion on his compass. Unable to do so, he tossed it aside as worthless and failed to benefit from the guidance it offered.

 

Isn’t this how we often treat God’s will, or our efforts in trying to know it? We want to make it match what we have already decided we want. But when we’ve been with Jesus, we seek first what God wants and then we obey Him and put His will into practice, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it may be. And people notice. We draw others closer to God in everything we do and say. We walk into a room and people feel a little closer to heaven.

 

Troy Burns