You may never have heard their names, but for the last 43 years Joel David and Maureen Seaberg have appeared regularly on one of Britain’s favourite TV soap operas – Coronation Street. Always in the background to the stars with household names, very occasionally they emerged from the shadows to play a more prominent role.
The Bible is full of such characters – people who were going about their daily lives, minding their own business, as extras of little significance in the grand sweep of history; but who then suddenly found themselves thrust into the limelight never to be forgotten. Take for example the Samaritan woman at the well who met Jesus one day, or the paralysed man let down through a roof to find healing and forgiveness, or the poor widow at the Temple at who crept up to the Treasury and gave two small coins – all she had to live on. We don’t even know their names much less what happened to them.
They remind us that as far as God is concerned there’s no such thing as an ‘extra’ or a walk-on part. Every single one of us is noticed and loved by Him and He longs for us to know Him as Father. In His show, we’re all stars.