The Hidden People
Tuesday, May 31, 2005 (12:48:28)

Posted by Conx

Many years ago, I hid myself away working night-shifts. The reasons why are not really important here, you just need to know that I did. Over the seven years I did this, I noticed that there were two distinct groups of people working with me (and, eventually, FOR me).

The first group were the normal folks with families and large mortgages - perfectly rational human beings who had made the decision to sacrifice daylight hours for better money. The second group were the "hidden people". While the "normal" folks tended to be the supervisors and the ones who provided stability to the group, the hidden people tended to pass through like migratory birds, often making a lot of noise before suddenly disappearing again.

As a consequence, I've worked with people with facial deformities, eyes and hands missing, a dwarf and a hunchback. I've worked with an openly-homosexual Muslim, a man with such terrible body odour that he worked the post room alone, at least one alcoholic, several gamblers, an anorexic and a man whose hair got so greasy that it'd run down his forehead within an hour of him starting work. I've worked with several people who've just come out of bad relationships and couldn't bear to start again, people who's husband or wife had died young and unexpectedly, men and women who've caused untold damage to their own relationships and to others, a lady whose husband was in jail for violent offences to others. I've worked with a woman who'd given up a child for adoption and several who'd had abortions. I've worked with wife-beaters and rapists, fraudsters and drunk-drivers. I even worked with a guy who'd guarded Rudolph Hess!

Apart from the last one (and he had his own secret), they were all looking for a place to fit in where society wouldn't judge them. They were misfits who hid from the light of day - the sort of people you lived next door to for years and never knew their names. The sort of people who's 5 minute conversation with the guy who delivers the milk would be the highlight of their day. Faceless, grey people who embraced anonymity.

I look back now and think, "Boy, as a Christian, I'd be able to make a difference there". But I wasn't a Christian at the time and I wouldn't have been there if I was because one of the people I was running away from was God. I had the opportunity twenty years too early for me to do anything about it. Sure, I'll get other chances to bring others to Christ in the future, but I'll never get a better chance to make a difference to a whole group of people all at once. People who needed Jesus desperately.

The knowledge frustrates me. I'm angry with myself; not because I didn't have a relationship with Jesus, but because Jesus could not work through me because the I'd broken my own relationship with him. Others suffered because of MY stubbornness. Maybe Jesus worked through others to rescue some of them? I certainly hope so. But it doesn't heal my guilt.

"Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and yet keep on walking in the darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us". 1 John 1:5-10

So, if you are truly a Christian, remember the "hidden ones". Seek them out in the darkness and lead them into the glorious light of God. Because, by saving them, you are really saving yourself.

Conx

Copyright (c) Conway Billington

Every experience God gives us, every person that He puts into our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see. Corrie ten Boom