first impressions

how many people do you think you have seen or met in your life?

a few i bet. i was amazed when i worked downtown how many people i would see on the way to and from lunch. and yet it seemed i never saw the same person twice. and that is quite a sliver of time if you think about it. one to two hours when normally the same people take a lunch break in one part of one city. there are freaking billions of people out there. what do you think the number of people you have seen in your lifetime?

i read in another person blogs his reasoning for how many people he has met, and it is quite analytical:

Say you took an average of one person a day (or is that too few? some days I meet twenty people and some days none, so I'd say one or two).

Say two people a day. Because of my lifestyle and profession.

By meet I mean introduced to. Had at least three sentences of dialogue with.

Multiply that by the days in your life when you're conscious of meeting people, so in my case that would be 34 years X 365 days + 8 Leap Year days = 4,529,650 days X 2 people.

That's 9,059,300 so far.

Maybe just one.

Even if it's just one - that's 4.5 million people.

That's the population of Ireland. (published on Chocolate Court)

crazy huh? and that is actually meeting people, you've prob seen more than 100x that amount in concerts, crowded streets, sporting events, driving by. how many of those people do you think had a good first impression of you, from a distance or in conversation?

i can easily say that i have walked around grumpy, or with a serious face when there was actually nothing wrong. man, what must i be like when i am actually in a bad mood?

i'm not saying we should be perfect everytime we walk out the door in anticipation of being a perfect example, but we should, i'm sorry, i should be more aware of it than i am now. if we have been changed by God's power, His grace, and His mercy, it should show somehow. people in the gospels, even against Jesus' wishes, told, yelled, ran down the streets with the good news of healing, of newness, or second life.

it would be nice to have a miraculous story of sight from blindness or ability from lameness, but we don't all have that luxury. but our story is just as powerful, for we serve and worship that same Savior. that same one who drew pictures in the sand in the midst of judgement, that same God who looked down on those mocking Him and begged for their forgiveness. look into the person walking by you, see the life through their eyes and have a Godly-compassion for them. THAT is the impression i desire to leave.