I have this posted over my desk :

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

The quote is sometimes attributed to Plato, but I can’t verify it.  But I think that it is profound.  It reminds me to try and see Christ in everyone that I meet even when they are not behaving in a Christian manner.

I pray that God will increase my heart every day.  This man has heart and then some:

In those bleak moments when the lost souls stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, the sound of the wind and the waves was broken by a soft voice. “Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea?” the stranger would ask. And when they turned to him, his smile was often their salvation.

For almost 50 years, Don Ritchie has lived across the street from Australia’s most notorious suicide spot, a rocky cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbour called the Gap. And in that time, the man widely regarded as a guardian angel has shepherded countless people away from the edge. Read more here.

It never ceases to amaze me how the simple gestures–simply reaching out to a person–can have a huge impact. Too often we do not reach out to a troubled person out of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of intruding.

I don’t know if Don Ritchie is a man of faith.  But he is a man of heroic virtue.