I’m gearing up for some road trips this fall. I’m sure many of us have traveled recently, heading
off for destinations far and wide. Business or pleasure, city or country, mountain or beach, we
all love to travel.

Set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. – 1
Timothy 4:12b

We’re not invisible. Even when we’re far away from home, far away from anyone who knows
us, we’re still God’s ambassadors. How we behave gets noticed. Here is a great opportunity
to show strangers how a child of God behaves, and maybe inspire them to do the same. Do
we stand on a street corner in a distant city and declare that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand?
Probably not. But do we keep our heads up, greet strangers with eye contact and a smile, and
make them feel like we’re glad that our paths crossed? Not always yes, but we try.

This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. –
John 13:35

So, by treating strangers with kindness, we communicate the Father’s love for them through
us. And maybe, put in a better mood, they’ll do the same for the next person. It’s like at Easter
Vigil, or Christmas Eve, when the flame from a single candle is passed from person to person
until the whole church is lit up. The original flame is not extinguished because it passed along
its light, is it? No! Instead, the light is multiplied until darkness itself is extinguished!

Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and
glorify your heavenly Father. – Matthew 5:16

We don’t conduct ourselves like this in order that others may remember us by name, do we?
These people will likely never see us again. But we do this because by brightening someone’s
day, we can cause a chain reaction of complete strangers whose days will also be lit by the
flame of God’s love. Also, it brightens our own day when we see that we’ve brightened
someone else’s. We’ve become God’s instruments!

We pray:
Heavenly Father, as we travel to distant lands, You are with us always. Your
commandment to love one another doesn’t stop when we leave our own borders. We
are still bound by Your law, and still expected to behave as Your children. Help us to
pass along Your light wherever we go. We ask this through Your Son Jesus Christ, who
spread light like no other before or since. AMEN.

Jeff, our friend in Connecticut