Labels

When you meet someone for the first time, what do you ask them? Probably
pretty early on it’s ‘what do you do?’ Or, ‘do you have a family?’ Maybe ‘where
do you live?’



They are reasonable questions. They help us find out about the newcomer.
But often, without realizing it, we are forming a judgement of them based on
what we learn of their job, their family background, the kind of house they
live in; possibly by the clothes they are wearing.



There was an interesting experiment recently. Six photographers were
asked to photograph the same man, wearing the same clothes- so there was no
outer differentiator. One was told he was a life-saver, another that he was a
fisherman. One was told he was a millionaire, another that he was a recovering
alcoholic. One that he was a psychic, another that he was a former prisoner.



The six resulting photographs of the same man in the same clothes are
entirely different:

The labels we give people do not actually determine who they are, only
how we perceive them to be. Every one of us is different. No two people are the
same. We all have a precious God-given life, character, passion and a future
beyond where we came from, what we do and how we look.



Let’s look beyond the obvious to what ‘can be’. Some friends of mine are
doing this right now. I’m taking a team out to India in February to see how they
are getting on. Children are being rescued, food and medical help is being
provided. What others threw away as worthless lives, we are taking hold of,
giving children a hope and a future. The Bible says God takes all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and
things, animals and atoms— and they get properly fixed and fitted together in
vibrant harmonies (Colossians 1: 19, the Message version of the Bible).
So good that God didn’t asses us on what we can and can’t do!



The labels others have given don’t determine who we are.