This is how lots of people are to us—insignificant. We don’t count them worthy of noticing or paying attention to. They are to us, “little people.” Francis Schaeffer thought this issue so important, he put it on the cover of his book. He says. “With God there are no little people.”

Some classes of people are especially this way—disabled people, or children, or people of a certain color. Often, adults will look right past children and not pay attention to them. They treat them as if they are not human. They treat them as if they do not exist.

Jesus never did this. To children, to the disabled, to the blind, to the lame, to the outcast—He paid attention to them all. Getting along with others starts with following the example of Jesus and paying attention to them.

Paying attention to someone shows that you value them. It demonstrates that they are important. It communicates love. Rick Warren says, “Kindness always starts with sensitivity.”

There is a lot we can do to communicate love after we pay attention, but almost nothing we can do before. Paying attention must come first.