Ben Jack on first impressions

Ben Jack

I don't know about you, but I have a real fascination with people-watching. Now before you start to worry, I'm not talking about hiding in the bushes outside people's houses watching them through the window-I believe that is called stalking. I'm talking about those spare few moments you have waiting for someone in a restaurant, or sat on the train, where you find yourself observing the people around you. I wish Sir David Attenborough would make a documentary about us curious creatures, with the same attention to detail as he looks at the world's other species. For my money, we are the most fascinating beings to observe on the planet.

I was recently sat in Dallas airport with some time on my hands. After exhausting a less than thrilling edition of Rolling Stone magazine (there's only so long a feature on Polish folk music will keep me entertained), my attention turned to the various people around me in the departures lounge. Airports are incredible places for a quality dose of people-watching, with every demographic and social group potentially represented. Looking around the room, you could observe flustered parents trying to reign in hyped-up children (E numbers before a flight are a huge error), couples young and old flying to and from romantic breaks, businessmen making last minute phone calls before losing their communication with the world for a few hours.

I couldn't help but wonder as I sat there, where everyone was going I mean, I had a vague idea of where they were traveling to that day; you could guess that much from reading the departures boards! But where were they going in life? That's what interests me most about watching people, that every single person is different, leading a different existence. Different lives, hopes and dreams, ambitions and passions, I could go on and on. Watching someone may give me a tiny insight into their life for that specific moment, but it could never truly give me access to who they are.

The scary thing about observing people in such a way is when you turn it around on yourself. I wonder what other 'people-watchers' make of me as I sit there! What conclusions do they draw as they see me for these brief moments?

These days, airports are all about identity. Knowledge of identity is how we monitor security. Our passports give access to enough information about us to get from one country to another. When we arrive in a foreign nation we are asked for more information, most immediately about the intentions of our visit - business or pleasure. If you are really lucky you might even get taken into a side-room for further 'questioning', like my mate Andy, who must have a face that looks suspicious as it happens every time we travel. Either that or he has a criminal record I don't know about, which would explain a lot now that I think about it.

Although considered proof of our identity, to the average person our passports give little more knowledge of who we are, than 'people-watching' does. Sure we can get a few key facts, but can we learn about the heart and desires of a person from their passport? The point is, sometimes in life we only have limited opportunity and circumstances to make an impression. In fact when you think about it, our existence on this earth is so short relative to all of time, that we really do only have a brief opportunity to leave a mark!

Could it ever be possible for a 'people-watcher' to spot me from across a busy airport and know that Jesus was the centre of my life just by observing me for a short while? Wouldn't that be incredible!

The only way I will ever find out is by actually letting Jesus take his rightful place at the centre of my life. That means more than just accepting him into your life, it means allowing God to influence all that you are. Not to become a Christian robot or clone, far from it! This is to enter into the fullness of life as God intends, with him as our centre.

When we start living in such a way, our identities will become so much more than just the sum of our hopes, dreams and ambitions. They will develop beyond our passions, our strengths and weaknesses, our achievements and failures. Christian evangelist and author Leonard Ravenhill quite rightly noted that,

"Any method of evangelism will work, if God is in it."

If God is at the centre of my identity, my life becomes a living form of evangelism. With God at the centre of our identity, we can begin to show the world what we all so desperately need: authenticity.

Next time I am in a situation where I might be being 'people-watched', I hope I have no idea it's happening. I pray that whoever is watching sees something that makes them stop watching, and start wondering.