A friend told this story some time ago. It seems a little boy about ten years old was standing before a shoe store on Broadway, barefoot, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.
A lady approached the boy and said, “Say, little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?”
“I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,” he replied.
The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She also asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the boy to the back of the store, knelt down, washed his feet and dried them with the towel.
By this time the clerk had returned with the socks. She placed a pair on the boy’s feet, bought him a pair of shoes, tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him. She said, “No doubt, you feel more comfortable now?”
As she turned to leave, the astonished lad caught her by the hand and looked up into her face. With tears in his eyes, he said, “Are you God’s wife?”
I don’t know what she answered. It would have been appropriate to say something like, “No, but I am one of his many servants, trying to do what I think he would do if he were here.”
St. John had this to say: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:11-12 NIV).
On Valentine’s Day, we think about love as it relates to our spouses, sweethearts, children or parents, and we should emphasize such love. But don’t forget to be God’s servant by showing love in unexpected ways as well.
