Experts

I thought no one read this (and they still may not... besides you, Jadie, haha!) but I saw it on someone's "blogs i read" list the other day and felt really guilty I haven't updated! The internet is such a funny thing... It has given people confidence and power unlike anything else I can think of-- I mean, really, who am I to think that anyone else actually wants to read my jumbled, run-on sentences? The internet has provided an alternate reality where people feel as though they are entitled to share their thoughts about anything and everything and become their own "expert". It's pretty crazy when I actually think about it, not to mention entirely narcissistic. Really, who do we think we are?
I was thinking the other day, when I was reading someone's blog, about a theory I had when I was younger. I decided, on no specific occasion I can remember, that everyone was an expert on something. Some were more obvious, like doctors or lawyers, whose occupations require a trained expertise. Others, though, were more elusive; I would sit in a restaurant and wonder what our waiter's secret expertise must be-- perhaps he knew everything about dirt bike racing, or was an avid fly fisherman in his off-time. (Or maybe he had all the knowledge able to be acquired about chicken tenders, after all, he was serving them to me.) It became my way of finding the "good" in everyone-- no matter how dumb, lazy, helpless or insignificant a person might seem to the world on the surface, I knew that there was something that they knew more about than anyone else (or, at least, knew more about than I did!) and that made them unique. As I would postulate about everyone's individual talents, I would also try to determine my own. I remember becoming anxious that I would never be able to "find" my expertise, and therefore would become an obsolete citizen. Oh, the worries of the elementary school girl!
As the years have past, I have found different things that I seem to have a knack for. (If there was a career to be made in "Googling", I would have it...) But moreover, I have had the opportunity to see the good in other people, which I have determined to be Jesus in everyone. (see a lower post for this theory of mine) It's thrilling, to be able to look at anyone, from the cashier at Planet Smoothie to the girl who sits next to me at work, and search for Jesus within them, no matter if they know him or not.