Gospel centered bus riding

Since I'm naturally interested in people and love to watch the way they interact with the world around them, riding the bus the last couple of days has been like Christmas on wheels. It's amazing what you can learn about people without them ever saying a word to you. Where they sit, how they sit, whether or not they strike up a conversation with the people around them, all these things can tell you a lot about someone. This morning for example you could tell that almost everyone on the bus was still trying to wake up. Almost all of them were wearing sunglasses so that it was easier to nap and several of them had mp3 players pumping background noise into their half awake brains. Shy people tend to sit as far from everyone else as possible, I actually saw one person sit on the edge of their seat just so they wouldn't have to sit to close to the person they were sharing the bench with.

Humans fascinate me. Since I'm a Christian and I filter all of life through The Gospel, I believe that all people reflect the glory of God and bare witness to some attribute of His nature, people watching isn't just socially informative it's also theologically informative. Obviously because we live in a fallen world these attributes and traits aren't seen in the same perfection and holiness as they exist in God but we can see a small glimpse of God in His creation. Joy, love, kindness, anger, community, compassion, and many other emotions and actions are all small flashes of His personality, like fireflies in a night sky. In the words of 1 Corinthians 13:12:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

For Christians simply seeing creation through the filter of The Gospel isn't enough though, we must act to bring that creation into a correct relationship with it's maker. This is hard, thankless, unglamorous, frustrating, time consuming work that in the end may not bare any kind of visible fruit. Thankfully our charge isn't to see who can harvest the most fruit, but to simply work faithfully for the advance of The Gospel.