A beggar came asking for food.
I told him to come through the back door and asked him to sit on the floor while I went in to bring in the leftover food.
I brought him some food and said:
Let us pray. Now repeat after me: “OUR FATHER who is in heaven”.
He said: « YOUR FATHER who is in heaven ».
I said: « No, say OUR FATHER who is in heaven ».
He said again: « YOUR FATHER who is in heaven »!
This extremely irritated me!
I then asked him: « Why do you say ‘YOUR FATHER’ when I say ‘OUR FATHER?' »
He replied this: « Sir, that’s how it is. If I say OUR FATHER, then we both become brothers. And if we were brothers, you would invite me to enter through the front door and not through behind; you would ask me to sit at your dining table, not on the floor; you would not give me stale food either! Sir, it is not possible that we are sons of the same father! He is maybe YOUR FATHER, but he cannot be OUR FATHER!”
Whose FATHER is he?
It took a beggar to teach me the truth!
GOD becomes OUR FATHER when we treat each other as brothers and sisters.
May GOD grant us to be aware that we are all brothers and sisters.
Apostle Jean-Claude SINDAYIGAYA