By Bettie Marlowe, General Sunday School Coordinator
During World War II, the words, “Kilroy was here,” began appearing in places all over the world—on boxes, walls, ships and every available surface. At first, considered just graffiti, investigation revealed the words came from a real person. Called the most published man since Shakespeare, in 1947 after the war, James Kilroy explained how it started:
Kilroy began working for the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1941 in the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, as an inspector. “I was getting sick of being accused of not looking the jobs over and one day, as I came through the manhole of a tank I had just surveyed, I angrily marked with yellow crayon on the tank top, where the tester could see it—“KILROY WAS HERE.”
The copied phrase traveled on crates, equipment and ships everywhere GIs went.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the words, “Jesus was here,” would appear wherever Christians went? Do we leave our mark whenever we pass through?
The sixth verse of the 23rd Psalm reads: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”
What follows behind as we walk through this world? Is there goodness and mercy in our wake? Does it appear that our living address is in the House of the Lord? Or are chaos and confusion following on our heels?
A commercial depicting Tennessee Trash once aired on TV years ago. It featured a man strewing trash and debris all down the highway as he gleefully drove along, seemingly oblivious to what he left behind.
I don’t want to leave trash, disorder and turmoil in the path behind me. Do you?
As Christians, we must be like Jesus. Is the Sunday School telling the world that “Jesus was here”?
Everywhere He went,
He was doing good.
Gave beatitudes,
helped the multitudes
Everywhere He could.
When the crippled saw Him,
they started walking;
The dumb were talking like they should.
Everywhere He went,
My Lord was doing good.”
– Blackwood Brothers