Rev. Dr. Mark David Albertson
I used to think my job as a pastor was to get people “right” with God.
Which, if I’m honest, really meant getting them to think like me.
Then one afternoon over coffee, I met a young woman who had stopped going to church years ago.
She didn’t call herself a Christian anymore.
But as we talked, she told me about her work at a homeless shelter, how she prays for the people she meets there, and how she feels God’s presence when she listens to someone’s story.
Somewhere between sips, it hit me:
She didn’t need me to “save” her.
She was already walking with God — maybe in ways I could learn from.
It made me think of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman in John 4.
He didn’t tell her, “Here’s the checklist to get right with God.”
He met her where she was.
He listened.
He offered living water — and she became a witness in her own town without ever fitting neatly into anyone’s religious box.
That conversation with her changed me.
I stopped trying to “fix” people and started trying to see the Christ already present in them.
If you’ve ever felt like someone’s project instead of their friend, you know how heavy that feels.
But when someone looks at you and says, “God is already here with you,” that’s freedom.
You don’t have to be anyone’s savior.
Jesus already handled that.
You just have to love people well enough to notice what God’s doing in their life.
What’s one time you saw God in someone who didn’t fit your idea of a “good Christian”?
