Al Kyte's Life Take-Aways

       

I‘m thankful that God has various ways of reaching out to us.  Sometimes He reveals something to me as I read His written word or touches my emotions during a worship song.  Often I believe He uses the words or actions of people to encourage me.  Yet even when people are not around in the silence of prayer or out in nature, I often sense His presence.  One such time occurred years ago as I was fishing up a clear mountain stream.

It was my favorite weather that day, low 70s with a slight breeze.  I was fishing upstream, making a few casts then taking a few steps before casting again.  In wading against the current I would study the placement of rocks in the stream ahead to prevent falling.  As I was doing that, my attention was momentarily drawn to a small but unusually beautiful rock on the stream’s bottom.  It was far more brilliant than any of the rocks around it and in that sunlight shone like a bright jewel.  Putting aside my focus on fishing and moving up to that rock, I reached down to lift it from the water.  When I held it up, I was startled to see that it was no longer brilliant.  Although I had seen that happen before, I was nonetheless stunned by how much color had been lost.  In my hand that brightest of all rocks now looked like so many others.

As I stared at that rock, I sensed God impressing something on my mind:  “Son, often you look at yourself and at other people as you are now looking at that rock—as being ordinary.  But I see you and all my people in the beauty you saw in that rock before lifting it from the water.  I see you through spiritual waters in the beauty I created in you.  And from this day forward I want you to start seeing yourself and other people as I do.”  So for years now I have tried to do just that.  When I remind myself that we are all one in God’s loving act of creation, that beauty seems easy to find.

As I have continued to walk and fish along mountain streams, I have picked up other rocks that have struck me as unusually beautiful.  Every few years I pass out a basket of those rocks to people I am teaching.  I ask each person to take a rock that he or she is drawn to.  Then I let them know that each of those ordinary-looking rocks was selected from many others because of its unusual beauty.  And I tell them what God revealed to me on that stream those many years ago.

I have since learned that trying to see people through God’s eyes sometimes means seeing them in a potential they have not yet realized.  I believe that God gives us uplifting thoughts about people for the purpose of encouraging them, not just keeping those thoughts to ourselves.  Such encouragement can change everything, especially for a young person who hasn’t had much.