After I retired, I worked with the leadership teams of non-profit organizations. I always started by interviewing the members who would go through the training. This gave me a clear picture of the needs of the organization. In every organization I found the same dominant need. The difficulty of connecting with people.

One afternoon my best friend was sharing an experience he had with someone. He said, “You know Rob, after she told me this gut-wrenching story she said, ‘And that’s my Normal.’” I never forgot that truth. Our normal is how we see things. That truth became fundamental to the training curriculum. My research brought me to discover what I believe are the fundamental shapers of our “Normal.” They are the Generation we were born into, our Gender, our Culture, our Experiences, our Training & Education, our Emotions, and our Biological factors. This is why 5 people can see the same thing and have 5 different opinions…and be right. We all have a different “Normal.”

I experienced this one night in Amarillo, Texas. It was around midnight, sitting in the dark on an Air Force bus. It was the beginning of basic training. The 30 anxious men on the bus were all strangers from across the country. That’s when it happened. The guy sitting across from me said, “Arkie, you’ve got shoes on!” God used Sammy to begin the process of reshaping my Normal. Sammy, a man from Brooklyn, NY and me from the segregated south, started down the path of reshaping each other’s Normal. Sammy became my first black friend. Oh yes, we were different. But what drew us together was what we discovered we had in common.

Years later, after I came to Jesus, I was sitting in a Bible Study Fellowship discussion group when the man on my right answered the question and the man on my left, almost spring-loaded out of his chair and said, “Wow, would you repeat that? That is a great answer!” What makes this cool is the man who answered the question was a fry cook and the man who responded was a well-known lawyer…a professional wordsmith. This is an example of what Jesus can do to transform what we see. Both men, with very different Normals were seeing through the eyes of Jesus. I’ve been in Bible Study Fellowship for almost 20 years. I never get tired of watching men, with quite different Normals, discover the Joy of God’s Word as it reshapes their heart…their Normal.

Jesus did this one hot day in Samaria. A place where Jews did not go, but Jesus did. There He was sitting by the well, waiting. That’s when the outcast woman came to get water. Her bad reputation shaped how people saw her. She had no value to them but…to Jesus…He saw value. This fascinating story is found in John 4. Jesus transformed the woman that day. This transformation impacted not only the lady but the community. After she accepted the Lord, she ran into the town, without her water jug, to tell the community about Jesus. And this happened. “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So, when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. And because of His words many more became believers.” John 4:39-41. When Jesus becomes your Normal everything changes. We know that “Every Soul Matters To God” because in Johns 3:16, “He (God the Father) gave His one and only Son (Jesus), that WHOEVER believes in Him (Jesus) shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Today we have a problem. People seeing people like Jonah saw the people of Nineveh. They were different and they were evil. Just as they were then, so are we today. How will you choose to see people? Will you allow the transformational power of Jesus to see value or be caught up in the destructive conversations & thoughts of differences?