阅读经文 

有一位朋友为我制作了一件我珍爱的礼品，那是一块细小并精心染了色的木头，这位朋友在木头上面黏贴了一些小小的木片，当我向人展示这块木头时，很多人都大惑不解，他们看不出这块木头有什么意义，但有些人看后，他们的脸孔顿时亮起来，因为他们“看懂了。”那些小小的木片各有特别的位置，它们串成了“JESUS”（“耶稣”）这个字，但你需要从某一个角度来看这块木头，才能看得到这个字。它提醒我们，尽管在我们看不见耶稣时，祂也可能是与我们同在的。

一位尼日利亚的宣教同工帮助我“看见”耶稣。当我们站在非洲中部烈日之下时，他指着他办事处所在的细小建筑物大门说：“Harvey，有时我很难确认，我所见到站在大门口的人会不会是耶稣。”

当时没有人站在那里，然而，很多人都曾出入那扇大门，有些人来寻求援助，缴交学费、医药费、交通费、或其他的需要。所以，他脑海时常都会浮现一个问题：求助者是否就是耶稣呢？

实在难以知道。他会怎样回应呢？“纵使求助者不是耶稣，我宁愿误以为是祂，总好过以为不是祂、但却真的是祂！”他记得耶稣在今天的经文所说的话。

当有人求助时，我是否愿意如同面对耶稣那样来做出回应呢？

A friend made a gift for me that I treasure. It’s a small, neatly stained block of wood on which he glued several little pieces of wood. When I show it to people, it puzzles many of them. They see nothing meaningful in this block of wood. Others look at it, and their faces brighten as they “get it.” The little pieces are arranged in such a way that they spell “JESUS.” But you can see the name only if you look at the block a certain way. It reminds me that Jesus can be with us even when we don’t see him.

A missionary colleague in Nigeria helped me to “see” Jesus. As we stood under the hot sun in the middle of Africa, he pointed to the door of the small building where he kept an office and said, “Harvey, sometimes I find it hard to know if it’s Jesus I see at that door.”

No one was there at that moment, but many people had come up to that door, and others would be coming—to ask for help with school fees or hospital bills or transportation costs or other needs. So the question often crossed his mind: Is this a request from Jesus?

It isn’t easy to know. His response? “I would rather make the mistake of thinking this was a request from Jesus, even if it wasn’t—than to think it wasn’t but it was!” He was remembering Jesus’ words in our Scripture reading for today.

Am I willing to look in such a way that I can see Jesus when someone asks for help?