Sinners, All Shapes and Sizes

We took the kids to the Psalmond Road Pool today.

All human beings seem to be born with an innate ability to size one another up. We contrast and we compare (to ourselves, of course); we decide what we like and what we dislike in other people. That is, in our esteem of others, we decide who we would or wouldn't want to be. The catch being that this practice says more about who we are than anything else.

Now, if we all carry this uncanny ability to judge one another in almost every fashion, the public pool is one place that we hone our skills to perfection. You know what I'm talking about. From the chubby boy who keeps losing his trunks in the back to the thin woman in the string bikini, there are people in bathing suits, all shapes and sizes, some leaving more to the imagination than others. We notice. We can't help ourselves. We notice who's been working out and who shouldn't have put that on in public. And if we're not careful, there's a little bit of pride, a little bit of lust, a little bit of envy, a little bit of shame.

But what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? To have the eyes of Christ? Perhaps two things. We begin to look around at people in bathing suits and see more than bodies. We begin to see souls. We begin to see sinners, all shapes and sizes, all feeling a little bit of pride, lust, envy, or shame. We are all ugly. And we begin to see treasures, even the least of these, that God loved enough to dive in to His own creation to suffer and die to rescue. We are all beautiful.

My, the things you see at a public pool.