09/04/2026
From the "Weekly Update" at Christ Lutheran...
I was around 24 years old, visiting home in Kansas City on break from seminary, when I had an encounter at the grocery store that I have never quite forgotten.
I was walking through the store when someone recognized me. “Travis Ferguson?” she asked. I turned around. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” She explained that I probably wouldn’t remember her, but she had been a good friend of my mom’s when I was a little boy. We talked for a few minutes, catching up on where life had taken me. I told her about seminary and what I was doing. As our conversation came to an end, she said something that has stuck with me ever since: “I never would have guessed you would have turned out this way.”
She meant it as a compliment. And, in many ways, I understood why she said it. I had overcome some significant obstacles. My father had spent a good portion of my childhood in prison. I had struggled with ADHD and the learning challenges that came with it. I struggled with depression and self-harming behavior in high school. And now, somehow, I had ended up at seminary preparing to become a pastor.
I know she meant well. But there was another part of me that was offended. What do you mean you “never would have guessed I would turn out this way?” What exactly did you think I was going to become? What kind of picture had you formed of me when I was a little boy? What assumptions had you made about what I was capable of, where I would end up, or what kind of person I would become?
The thing that bothered me wasn't that she had been wrong about my future. It was that she had apparently formed a picture of me based on a handful of things she had seen, and that picture had become a conclusion about who I was.
We might call this a form of stereotyping. We all do it. A stereotype is, essentially, an oversimplified picture of a person or group that we use to make judgments about them. We see a few characteristics, notice a few behaviors, hear a few words, and then we fill in the rest of the story ourselves.
Someone is quiet or more introverted, and we decide they're unfriendly. Someone talks a lot, and we decide they are full of themselves. A girl doesn't like dresses and prefers jeans, and we label her as a “tomboy.” A man has a higher-pitched voice, and we label him as “feminine.” Someone struggles academically, and we say they aren't smart.
Those are just a few examples, of course. We could go on and on. And, again, we all do this.
Here's the problem: what we notice about someone is rarely the whole story. We're quick to put people into categories because categories make life easier. They help us make sense of the world. But people are not categories. They are people. And when we turn an observation into an assumption, and an assumption into a conclusion, we can end up believing—and sometimes saying—things about someone that simply aren't true.
One verse I treasure from Scripture is 1 Samuel 16:7. It is spoken to the prophet Samuel, who has been sent to anoint the next king of Israel. Samuel sees David's brother, Eliab, first and thinks, “This is the guy!” He was big and strong—just like a king should be (at least in human minds). But Eliab wasn't the next king. It was the teenager David. Amid this mix-up, God reminded Samuel: “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
We see the outside. God sees the whole person. Appearances, behaviors, and other outward characteristics tell us something, but they certainly don't tell us everything.
We see clothing. God sees a person.
We see personality. God sees a person.
We see someone's past. God sees a person.
We see a weakness. God sees a person.
We see one small piece of the picture. God sees the whole canvas.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously spoke about the hope that people would one day be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. That same principle challenges all of us in the ways we make assumptions about other people.
Because every person we encounter is more complicated, more beautiful, more broken, and more human than the category we might be tempted to put them in. Every person is more than the handful of characteristics we happen to notice.
There's more to me than the clerical collar I wear.
There's more to me than the tattoos that cover my skin.
There's more to me than the pensive face you might encounter when I'm in thought.
There's more to me than fatherlessness.
There's more to me.
And there's more to you… and every person around you.
May God grant us the eyes to see our brothers and sisters as He does. Not as pieces… but as people.
Pastor Travis Ferguson
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