In Construction

How good are you at building walls?  What kind do you like to build?  Those with a fortified permanence?  Or are you more of a builder that would really rather have your walls stormed and smashed to rubble?  

I recently attended a youth retreat that I was asked to be a counselor at, and I am so grateful that I was lead there.  During the very last session, the speaker shared about how a friend of his (also a parishioner of his church) came into his life carrying the diagnosis of a virulent form of cancer.  Death truly was imminent for this man.  It wasn't the point of the speaker's address, but the words in that half hour that stood out most to me were centered on his duties as a pastor to his flock that were in direct conjunction to our Father's "duties" towards His followers.  The speaker talked about how, as a pastor, he is continually called to engage in and pursue relationships with people that may either hurt him or are on the brink of death (the loss of that person would also lead to an obvious pain and grief).  That doesn't mean he is to shirk those relationships.  No, he's to continue to love and open up to those people regardless of the personal cost.  Similarly, we are constantly sinning.  And sin is why Christ bled and died for us...He died to remove that from us, to forgive us, to make us new and clean.  He did it because He loves us in this crazy, unfathomable, unconditional way.  This He does for us freely, and yet we continue on in our sin.  This causes our Savior, our Redeemer, the Lover of our souls deep pain.  What if you were to sacrifice everything for someone, only to have them abandon you?  To mistrust you and abuse your sacrifice?  We all know in our hearts how that would make us feel.  And most of us would give up on that person that took us for granted.  We would walk away because we can't let ourselves get walked on or continually hurt.  It's too much to handle.  We deserve better.  Or how about this one?  God wants us to be happy.  But is that what Jesus does?  Is that what He expects of us?  I don't believe that it is.  God is love. And love is this incredible, powerful gift that we're given by Him and given to share on behalf of Him.  But He never says that love is easy. "Love is patient and kind; love  does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." You can read this from it's source in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.  For those of you that are so familiar with the verses that you skimmed right over them, please pause, rewind, and re-read.  Soak in the truths offered by Scripture.  We are called to that sort of love.  A love that is willing to lay down all facets of self for the good of the beloved.  This is a difficult calling when our sin nature clamors for our attention, demanding us to take into consideration our own feelings.  We build walls against the people we love because we've been hurt and don't want to endure that again...and again and again and again.  This is wrong.  Walls are a tool of division, and we are never to be divided.  We are to remain in unity, at all costs.  This may mean that we go through a lot of pain, and that's awful.  But for the joy set before Him, Christ endured pain of an infinitely greater magnitude.  We are to mirror that.  Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).  Remember that beloved.  I'm not saying we should submit ourselves to abusive situations.  By all means, run from and seek shelter from that.  What I am saying is to measure every action and reaction in the light of selfless love.  There is never a situation that merits us to choose the opposite.  Never.  So the next time you find yourself picking up those bricks and slapping on that mortar, take a step back, set down those tools of destruction, and find a way to love.

 

The Art of the Judgmental

I start this post with a heavy heart.  The people who prescribe to the most loving of attitudes are often those with the most judgmental of hearts.  They talk of lovely things such as forgiveness and seeing the best in others, but when it comes to the lowly of spirit, the idolaters, the sexually promiscuous, the drunkards, the revelers, and the jobless, the story changes.  Then it becomes "those people," and they are spoken of as if they have a horrid disease contractable by simply breathing the same air.  It's as if these people are unredeemable and should be spoken poorly of and pushed to the side as rubbish.  Wake up!  These people are diseased!  They are in dire need of a Savior, Someone who can fulfill them in the ways that their sins cannot.  They need the Great Physician, and we hold the information to lead them there.  These are the people that the world holds in its vice-grip, blinding them and strangling them, forcing them to breathe the poisoned air of immorality and darkness.  They don't know or care to know that there is Something and Someone greater just beyond that deceitfully comforting haze of sin.

In Ireland in the mid-1800's, there was a group of young women referred to as "shawlies" because they were too poor to afford the hats that graced the heads of the proper women-folk of the day.  They lived in the slums, and were not sheltered in the way that proper ladies were.  Rather, they were privy to the conversations  and happenings of the railway workers, and were therefore looked upon as soiled and dirty.  Amy Carmichael, as a young lady, was interested in the souls of such precious women.  She knew that she was sheltered and that they were not.  Instead of following the order of the the proper, she ventured into the slums to fetch the shawlies, a deplorable act in her circumstance.  But Amy, following the call of God, "was more than ready to take risks for the sake of others," as recorded by Elisabeth Elliot in her biography titled A Chance to Die (I've spoken of this book already...I would recommend the read!).  She wondered what sort of life they led and implored her older brother as to what sort of conversation the shawlies must hear.  He wasn't sure that she should know, but he shared a few things once Amy proved she wouldn't be put off.  And do you know what Amy did?  She didn't pull back in revulsion and throw on a judgmental attitude toward the girls.  "She intensified her prayers that the girls would grow up pure and good."

Amy continued to work with these women and built up a ministry centered on them, all the while knowing that she must do more, more, more for the Kingdom.  How can we possibly choose a different route than that?  How is  it that we see ourselves as better than anyone else?  We all have the capacity for every sin, and yet we regard those who choose that path as something lesser than we are, simply because our gracious God has had mercy upon our souls and we have (only with His power) taken up that banner.  Instead of following in the heavy trodden path of judgment, I implore you to choose love.  Love the unloveable.  Love them in all that they are.  Do not love their sin, but love them deeply, with the same love extended to you by your Father in Heaven.  Love them right out of their sin, because love in its pure form is the strongest bond that binds and the truest form selflessness.  Look at those who are choosing to coat themselves in the filth of sin and pray and love and hope and know that the same Lord that chose to love you loves them just the same.