“I'm a hustler baby (Hov', I'm a hustler)
I just want you to know (Hov', I wanna let you know)
It ain't where I been (it ain't where I been, Hov')
But where I'm bout to go (top of the world! Young Hova, holla)”
People’s hearts say so much more about them than any one moment, circumstance or position they hold ever can. That’s one reason why I am drawn to Christianity, because it’s founded on love and the contents of the heart of man – not necessarily his actions.
I suppose we can have a discussion on intentions another day.
I was at the gas station the other night and had only five dollars in my pocket. The gas light came on and your boy wasn’t taking any chances, so I stopped to put five dollars’ worth of gas in my car, just to make sure I’d get home. “Who pushing no car?!”
At the gas station was one guy who pumps gas into people’s cars at nights. He doesn’t “work-work” there, but he’s a hustler baby and he just wants you to know. He approached me as I headed inside Star Mart to ask if I wanted him to pump my gas. “Oh! They asking permission now?!”
Anyway, because all I had was the five dollars and I wouldn’t have been able to give him anything for assisting me, I told him no – figuring I’d much rather him earn the buck than stick me up and take it along with my iPhone (that I probably should backup just in case) – but he said it was no problem and he would help me out.
First of all, sir, this isn’t your place of work – so it’s not like I didn’t have enough for the service and you’re doing me a solid…hahahahaha – the nerve! BUT I absolutely appreciated the gesture. The fact that I had been honest with him and he’d appreciated it and reciprocated with a gesture of service was an amazing experience.
They need to hire him as a consultant to teach customer service at TelEm, GEBE and Government Administration Building. (Damn! I’m never tired of being reprimanded for calling companies’ names…LOL!)
Okay, pull it back, Cam.
It would have been easy for me to just see this guy’s outward appearance and treat him like a bum, but to reiterate what I said in my opening statement: His circumstance did not and does not dictate the state of his heart. Obviously.
At a church service last Sunday, my sister taught on love and used the story of Jesus and the adulteress as a reference point. Let’s just say that there were three people there in the scenario: Jesus, the adulteress and the accuser.
The adulteress was down in the dirt, probably just wrapped in some sheets. (I mean she did get caught catching a lil piece-piece.) The accuser was well dressed, probably with his iPhone standing over this lady he’d just caught in a sex tape (WORLDSTAR). I really should back up my iPhone. And Jesus was standing there, well posé.
It was easy to just condemn this lady; see her based on one action; cast her aside and let them use her as target practice; give the accuser a medal for doing this great deed and bring this woman before Jesus – but nah.
Jesus saw their hearts and treated them based on that. He treated the lady with love and kindness. He did to her and gave to her the necessities to go on and grow past that current situation, while dude was basically called out on the intentions of his heart and told to run out peeeh-nuh!
For as often as people say that you can’t judge a book by its cover, you’d think we lived in a world where we operate from a place of love and see people for more than their circumstances.
*Siri, play I Just Wanna Love U (Give it 2 Me) by Jay-Z and Pharrel*
