Walking the main roadway in a downtown city yields sights, sounds and smells you do not get in your everyday location. Even though I have been downtown many times, with various visitors, there is always something new to learn, because of the people I am giving the tour to. I love that a city is alive and reveals more of itself depending on who is with me as we look at it.

The buildings haven’t changed, the stores haven’t shifted, the eateries and drinkeries are still releasing the same music with every step we take. But today I saw something different, because the person I was with felt something in my city I had not felt. He said he felt sadness. He went on to say it feels like hope is lost here.

I pondered his words the whole time we were downtown today. His words colored the way I saw the city. Today I saw people in wheelchairs, more than I have ever seen before down there. I saw the look in older women’s eyes that I had not seen before. I heard the tone of waitresses I had not heard in that way before. My heart began to break as I saw humanity hurting today.

We discussed the sights, sounds and smells of the city and the one word we all agreed humanity needs is love. Not lip service, not physical, but genuine love. Love that is of come, comes from God but flows through us. Then I was reading Psalm 123 moments ago and it says…

“The way I love you is like the way a servant wants to please his master, the way a maid waits for the orders of her mistress. We look to you, our God, with passionate longing to please you and discover more of your mercy and grace.”

Love is not transactional it is reciprocal. Love heals broken places in us that the one in front of us did not break. Love sounds different anything else on earth. Love motivates us to do things for love we would never do for money. Love compels me to please the Lord, to serve people, to submit to everyone, not out of duty, but out of love.

I love my city and I realized my city is in need of love. God’s love through humanity. Love that wants to be generous with a listening ear, a smile as we pass by or some financial gift to give a small hand up. Love looks Iike someone and today love looked like us three in this city. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org