One Saturday night a young mother was very busy around the house. Twenty people were coming for dinner on Sunday. So she asked her six-year old son to polish her shoes that she’d be wearing to church in the morning.
He did a nice job with the shoes and his mom gave him four quarters to buy candy. On Sunday morning when she slipped her feet into her shoes to go to church, she felt something inside. Each shoe had two quarters inside. The quarters were wrapped with a piece of paper that read: I DID IT FOR LOVE.
Those five words – I DID IT FOR LOVE – are the driving force and the horsepower behind everything good and worthwhile that we can do in our lives.
In today’s Gospel (Mark 9: 30-37) Jesus shares with his disciples his fate, what was going to be happening to him in the near future: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” They had no idea what Jesus was telling them. Once Jesus died and rose, they finally understood, HE DID IT FOR LOVE!
But that day the Twelve were arguing about who would be the greatest when Jesus established his early kingdom. To help them along, Jesus says, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the last, and the servant of all.” But they still didn’t get it . So Jesus picks up and puts a child in their midst and says,“Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me.” Sometimes it takes a child to teach us what we so often forget: I DID IT FOR LOVE.
Think of something difficult YOU recently did for one reason only: I DID IT FOR LOVE.
LOVE THE PEOPLE GOD GAVE YOU BECAUSE GOD WILL NEED THEM BACK ONE DAY!
