Now he had to go through Samaria. John 4:4

Much has been written about this verse, specifically that he didn’t really have to go through Samaria because it wasn’t on the way to anywhere. Fortunately for us (and of course the recipient of God’s grace in the story), it was lesson time, and John begins one of the most famous New Testament passages of Scripture, the Woman at the Well.

But before we progress into the story, it might be best for us to pause and consider acts of kindness we need to go out of our ways to commit in order to bless others. As I write this, I finished up a day of going around the city singing Valentines as part of a barbershop quartet. All of the paid assignments went off without a hitch, but it was the unpaid, impromptu tasks that made the day: brightening an otherwise bleak life of a dying lady by singing a couple of songs, encouraging her visitors and watching them wipe away tears, visiting a former barbershopper in the hospital who is deteriorating rapidly and is but a mere shadow of his former self. Each act was only three or four minutes of our time, but the effects last much longer. I fully admit that both acts were difficult but I’m glad we took the time to do it.

I don’t write that to toot my horn; I write only because of the freshness in my mind and the ease with which we were able to do it.

Today as you begin, think of one way you can bless someone else. It doesn’t have to be a grandiose act (or it will never get done), but it should be meaningful enough that if the shoes were on the other feet, so to speak, you’d be blessed by the same act. It’s the little things that matter, because those little things add up to a fuller and more meaningful life.