I was reading Luke this morning, and when I got to chapter 3, something occurred to me that I had not thought of before. John the Baptist's main purpose in life, it seems to me, was to set the stage for people to meet God. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Fill in the valleys, flatten the mountains, straighten crooked paths, and level the rough places so that people can see God.

It seems like such a great way to live, going about life doing whatever you can do to make it easier for people to see God. But as I thought about it, I was challenged. Is that what I try to do? Make it easy for people to see God? 

The opposite of John the Baptist, of course, are the Pharisees, who “tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” I flipped over to Matthew 23 and, in stark contrast to what I had just read in Luke 3, read about people who actually make it harder for people to see God. I can just imagine the fire leaping from Jesus' eyes, spittle flying from his mouth, as he called out the hypocrisy of people who are supposed to help others know God, yet actually make it harder.

Which am I? What does it look like to live in a way that makes the path to God straight and clear for others? I have several ideas, but here's the one I'm thinking about most right now: it looks rehumanizing.

When Jesus met people, whether the woman at the well, or the “sinful woman” who flung herself at his feet in the house of Simon the Leper, or the woman caught in adultery, or tax-collectors like Levi or Zacchaeus, he saw them first as human beings, not as “the adulteress” or “the tax collector.” He called them by name (“Zacchaeus, you come down from there!”). He spoke to them in such a way that they knew he saw them – not just their sin.

Do I do that? Do I see “the unwed mother,” “the drug addict,” and “the non-believer?” Or do I see Jennifer, Steve, and Lewis, all made in God's image and all designed to reflect his glory and help me know Him better?

The Pharisees seemed to stop seeing people as people, and instead saw them as targets for conversion. They seemed to see people as religious trophies, and they laid on one another standards that no one could ever live up to. That is dehumanizing. Jesus, alternately, seemed to see people in the light of their future glory selves – he saw the potential of who they could be, and indeed would be, if they walked with God. And when people were seen by Jesus, the way they saw themselves was affected. Healing took place, redemption took place. They began to see God.

How do I see people? How do they feel seen by me? 

This is just one idea, but there are many others. What comes to your mind when you consider what it means to prepare the way for the people you encounter to see God?