Good on The Go

He hadn't planned on helping this poor soul on the road that day.  He didn't know he would be there so badly in need.  He didn't even know that this person existed until the moment he encountered him as he was traveling down that road on that day.  But he was prepared to help him because he was prepared to do good on the go.

We call him "The Good Samaritan" but God called him "a Samaritan" (Lk 10:33a).  Our label suggests that he acted above and beyond the call of duty, God's designation suggests that he did what anyone ought to do.  The passage reads, "But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him" (Lk 10:33).

The "but" in the verse calls us to look back and take note that a priest and a Levite, a man of God and a temple worker, had also been on the go, but kept on going.  They saw the man but he wasn't on their agenda, so they passed on the other side of the road (vv. 31-32).  The difference in them and the Samaritan was just that, they kept on their previously determined agenda while the Samaritan recognized the overriding agenda of God in his path and "took the road less traveled."

Perhaps you recall the closing line of Robert Frost's classic poem from 1920 "The Road Not Taken": "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."  I am taking it somewhat out of context, but the larger meaning holds that we are faced with going the well traveled way or allowing the opportunity God has put before us to redirect our  day and perhaps even our life.

Are you intent to only do what you have on your agenda today?  Or are you willing for God to interrupt your plans with something good, something better?  Will you advert your eyes, move to he other side of the street or will you stop and help the one others have passed by?  Will you do good on the go, or will you just keep going?  Jus' Ask'n.