duty of a moment

I recently read a post on my friend Beth’s blog about how difficult it is to know how much we should invest in others, especially others that may only be in our lives for “a day, an afternoon, an hour.”

Just hours before reading the post, I had found myself in the elevator, heading up to my apartment. The two people sharing the elevator with me were both clearly American students. There was that awkward moment in the beginning of the ride where I thought about saying something, asking a question, striking up conversation, but then thought too hard; the moment of opportunity passed. So, the three of us stood patiently in silence. It was just a short ride up five floors, not worth chatting anyway. A few minutes later I was at my door, unlocking my apartment and setting down my schoolbag.

However, Beth’s point was that people are inherently worth investing time in, even those we do not know. She said, “you invest in them, knowing that you might never see them again.”

Beth’s writing immediately clicked with me. Living can’t be about giving when we know there will be a long term relationship or conversing when we are guaranteed another exchange, or avoiding awkward moments by staying quiet in elevators. Our humanity has got to run deeper in our veins than this comfort-seeking attitude.

It is okay to meet somebody and then “move on to new adventures,” as Beth put it, since we are, in the process, “leaving His fingerprints… even if we forget each other.”

Maybe not every elevator ever time, but sometimes it is our duty of the moment to say something, even something seemingly unimportant, to the person standing next to us.

Don’t let the sun set before you’ve given

somebody else a reason to hope (1 Peter 3:15).