So recently my adventures in insurance sales have taken me out to New Smyrna Beach Florida. Its not to small a town with a small town atmosphere. Its located of course right on the beach. It is beautiful. While condos are making an aggressive push to overtake and dominate the water front several sections of small beach homes are still holding their ground. This gives the majority of the town that old Florida small beach town feel. The breeze is always flowing and while its humid the breeze makes it comfortable. Every time I am outside I can hear the ocean and on windy days feel the sea mist. The people are all friendly and smiling. There are people walking down the streets with surf boards, their jogging, biking and strolling. People are relaxing on their porch and in the front yard at all times of day. It feels like a vacation just being there even though I am at work. I see mom and pop shops as you drive down the street and even a McDonalds is hard to find. It screams small town even though its population wouldn't categorize it that way. Its quite serene and peaceful. Its the only place where after I am done making my calls I find myself staying behind to just dwell on the beach.
Its Florida's best kept secret one man calls it. This was a man I visited to talk about a dental plan. I asked that man how he came to be there. "Serendipitously" he replied. He then went on to tell me about he had fallen ill on the road one day and had stopped off for the night. Well when he got there the rooms where all full it was the busy season. So the receptionist at one of the hotels helped him find an available room at a hotel no one knew about because it had just opened. When he got there the lady who ran the hotel, hearing his plight, decided to give him a discount. The next day he awoke only to find his car broken down. He took his car to a shell station only to have the man their fix his car for free. Not only did he fix it he gave him a free tank of gas. The man continued with his story to tell me he struck up a conversation with the man at the gas station and the topic of moving came up. The man at the gas station said "remember New Smyrna Its Florida's best kept secret" the man turned to me and smiled and said reassuringly "and it is". The man said he enjoyed his stay so much he decided to move there and has loved it ever since. Can you imagine that. Two days in New Smyrna changed that mans life. While New Smyrna is a nice town, its not that great. Yeah it has a beach but like I said you can't hardly find a Mcdonalds. The man didn't move there because of the town, he moved there because of the people. He came into contact with four people that ultimately changed his life. These four peoples total time with him probably didn't equal more than five hours that includes the stay at the mechanics. What an impact we as people can have on each other, you have no idea how everything you do can impact the life of someone else. Just one random act of kindness. Take this mans story. Just a few people, with a few random acts of kindness inspired this man to move. Do we love people, do we love the spirit of God, do we want to change lives, do we want to see the kingdom of God come in power. Are we helping people discover God's "best kept secret". You don't have to be John the Baptist or Billy Graham to lead people to God. These people in this small beach to town where not travel agents, nor where they huge marketing reps, marketing New Smyrna Beach they were regular people practicing random acts of kindness. Our actions are powerful, they can change lives. As we live our lives lets do so taking time to practice random acts of kindness. You never know which one will lead people to God's best kept secret.
