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Looking in the Window: Oh, To Be Magnetic

My daughter and I love to bargain shop. But we browse more than we buy. Many times after we get inside a store and go to a particular display we’re the only two people there. We pick up items and discuss them. If we really get interested in something, whether it’s clothing, cosmetics, accessories or gifts and books, we study it. If it’s a book, we make sure the print, pages and binding are intact. If it’s jewelry, and it’s supposed to have a necklace and earrings, we look to see if it has both. But this isn’t a piece about how to bargain shop.

Usually after we’ve been at a station for a while people flock around us. Then it’s extremely difficult to get to the merchandise. My daughter always asks, “Why is no one interested in this stuff until we start looking at it?”

I say, “I don’t know. Let’s look somewhere else, and they’ll leave in a little bit.”

One day my daughter complained to one of her friends about people in the stores rooting us out of our territory. Her friend said, “You probably appear very intense, so they think you’re looking at something of value. They want to make sure they don’t miss out.”

“Hmmm,” my daughter said, “I’d never thought of it that way.”

Later when I talked to her on the phone she said, “Mom, now I know why people run us away from the merchandise we’re trying to look at when we’re shopping.” Then, she told me about the conversation she had with her friend.

After I hung up the phone I asked myself, what if we were that intense over our worship and role as Christians?

John 13: 35, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Matthew 28: 19, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

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