Editorial July 11, 1994 Issue

Days filled with extraordinary opportunities

Russ Gerber

Where do you suppose you'd be if you were given a golden opportunity to inspire and improve other people's lives? Would you be at some big event? Giving a speech before a large audience? Conducting a seminar? Big plans and big events certainly can be opportunities for reaching people and conveying a vital message.

More often than not, though, the events and opportunities most of us have for making a significant difference in the world seem pretty small. Take a typical day's activities, for example. We might be called upon to conduct a meeting. Perhaps we're talking with friends at lunch. Maybe we have a presentation to give at school or we get involved in a dialogue with someone during a break at work. But even simple opportunities such as brief conversations can be greater opportunities for helping others than we might have imagined. That's clear from an incident in Christ Jesus' life.

It started out as a brief exchange between Jesus and a woman of Samaria at a well—a conversation that, according to the Gospel of John, had quite a remarkable impact (see John 4:1–42). We read not only what the woman learned during the encounter, but what was eventually discovered by others as a result of her sharing what had taken place. She told the people, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" (4:29) What she conveyed was convincing enough to prompt them to see for themselves that what she had witnessed of the Christ was indeed true, and essential to the well-being of everyone. A couple of days later many people told her, "Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (4:42).

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