The other day as I was running late to an appointment, the car in front of me kept swerving and then slowing down abruptly. Ever been there? I tried to get around them, but the traffic around me wouldn’t let me. After several minutes, I found myself strangling my steering wheel and I blurted out, “Oh c’mon! Just get out of my way!” I recall thinking to myself, “I’d be doing fine if it wasn’t for this person in front of me.” And then it hit me—the person in front of me. That is precisely the person I am called to love.

In life, there are people whom God puts in our path (in our way!), but sadly, too often, we don’t want to love them, we want to get around them, to avoid them. But the radical call upon our lives as Christians is to do good to everyone. Everyone!

The real challenge of Christian love is that “everyone” becomes very specific and often very inconvenient in our day-to-day lives. It’s the person right in front of us—the bad driver, the difficult neighbor, the quirky family member, the callous co-worker, the rude cashier.

In each case, our call is to sacrificially live for the welfare of the person right in front of us. Why? Because this “in front of me love” is the kind of love that God has for us in Jesus and the kind of love he wants to give to others through us. I wonder, who’s the person in front of you right now?

Dear God, I desperately need your grace to do your will and to reflect your character. I need your empowerment to display your love. Help me, fill me, and use me today to love the person who’s right in front of me. Amen.