Reggie Wilson is the driver on Metro Bus Route 48 in Seattle. Commuters who ride his bus to work each day see first hand what can happen when a man isn’t ashamed to act from his heart. Reggie is known as “the singing bus driver.” The enthusiasm of his heart is contagious.
It isn’t uncommon to find his passengers boisterously singing “The Sunshine Song” together as they clap their hands to the beat. “If You’re Happy That It’s Friday, Say Uh-Huh” is a group favorite. Sometimes they are eating the cheese and crackers that Reggie has put under some of the seats. “What do we do with cheese?” he asks his passengers over the bus microphone. “We share!” the crowd responds. “That’s right,” Reggie answers. “Cheese is great and we don’t eat it all by ourselves. We share it!”
This kind of behavior may seem bizarre to the analytical mind, but not to a heart set free. Reggie came under criticism when he began his routine. He thought of quitting his singing and just drive the bus. Then one day a woman who got on the bus told him, “I learned yesterday that I had terminal cancer. You made me laugh. Please don’t ever stop.” So he hasn’t.
Reggie’s assessment of his situation? He said, “I love being a bus driver. Do you know how great it is to see a busload of smiling people? When I see that I feel like I have found my glory. ” I have found my glory. What do you think he means? I believe he has discovered his heart and learned to trust it, and as a bus driver on a Seattle city bus, Reggie White is making a difference.
Many with a church background grew up being bombarded with the Old Testament teaching that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). Because they have locked in on that single verse to the exclusion of others, they have come to doubt their own heart, believing it to be untrustworthy. While it is true that apart from God’s transforming grace, man’s heart is deceitful and wicked, you don’t live at that place. You have been embraced by the grace of God and have been transformed.
God promised in another place, “I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart” (Ezekiel 36:36 The New Living Translation). As a child of God, that is where you live. Your heart’s desire is to be obedient to God and to glorify Him. Why else would you be reading a book like this? Trust your heart. God has transformed it by His grace.
You can trust your heart because it belongs to Jesus Christ. You have become a partaker of the divine nature. (See 2 Peter 1:4) His life is your life. Learning to trust your heart will progress in direct proportion to choosing to believe that truth.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
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"I've found my glory." WOW!
ReplyDeleteHe's living knowing he's unconditionally loved and he'e been set free to love others.
Good stuff!