Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-Eight

For the past nine weeks, I have referenced Bill Hybels book Who You Are When No One’s Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise. In this final article on this topic, I want to focus on the greatest character in all history.
This individual possessing this character embraces all the traits that have been discussed in this series. He has the courage to be different from the world, not just one who accepts “status quo”. He is disciplined, in control of his thoughts and actions. He has the vision to see into the future and empower His friends to become the best they can be. He has the endurance to hang with those friends who are difficult and mean spirited. Especially for these difficult people, He has an abundance of tender, tough, sacrificial, and radical love.
The individual of whom I speak is Jesus Christ, a man whose own people only wrote one sentence about him in their history. He came to bring them the best life could offer, and was rejected. Yet He still invites us to share in His character today.
How best do we do this? A quite lengthy passage from the King James Version will illustrate.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed
of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
--Matthew 25: 34-40

I have learned a great truth through the years—we serve God in this world by helping others. That is how we develop our greatest potential character.
I think every day of those great people of character who helped me along life’s path, even when I was so caught up in my own greatness that I didn’t realize how much they were helping me. My one regret is that I didn’t appreciate them enough at the time and have missed my opportunity in this life to thank them.
But they live in my memory, and it is now my mission to help others as they have helped me. In so doing, I will develop my own character to become more the servant to others I must be.
I hope you the readers have enjoyed this series of articles that have been a meditation on character. Next week I plan to travel back some eighty years in time to hear a child’s view of a special time in life.