Renewed Hope

Sunday February 10, 2013    "Just People"

As I sit here today I am aware of so many different things. First is the joy of being alive even though it seems physcially there is a seeming lack of abundance of energy. So I am enjoying sitting here in my rocking chair with my keyboard on my lap writing down a few things.

My husband got a phone call this week he said from someone from the congregation that I fellowship with inviting him to a men's breakfast. Now some of you will probably say," How nice!!"   If someone called you that you didn't know, hadn't met and had no idea who they were and didn't even recognize their name, would you be very excited if they called and invited you to join them for a "men's breakfast"?    Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking about, or maybe I really do know and don't want to think about the meaning of what they are thinking when they invite people to do things like this.

I was having lunch with some folks after a Sunday service, getting acquainted with them, and one of the men said as we departed, "we are praying for your husband that he will start coming to church."   Then he added a quick comment, " That is what you want isn't it?"

I think he was shocked when I said, "NO!" and I said it rather emphatically.  That wasn't what I wanted. What I longed for was people to get acquainted with my wonderful husband,  to come by our home and find out what a neat guy he is.  He is a neat guy and worth their time to make his acquaintence no matter whether he goes to their church services ever!!

Years ago I encountered some of this same kind of thinking and it often still puzzles me as to what kind of "message" we call the "Good News" when I see things like this happening. Years ago the home I was living in with my husband at the time, had several trees fall on the house and many in the yard.  People joked in the neighborhood when I told them where I lived. Oh the house that the trees fell on!!  Yep, that was our house. And we were so thankful that the trees just hit the side of the house as they fell between the house and the barn with just limbs doing damage as the bodies of the trees landed on the ground beside the house.
Our daughter who was 2 at the time was sleeping in the room that the trees clipped but her crib was on an inside wall and she was in no ways injured and her room suffered cracks in the ceiling but no broken glass or anything. I was so thankful when this happened knowing what provision the Lord had made some weeks before.

One morning in prayer the Lord spoke to my heart and asked me to ask Him to put two angels on the roof of our home.  Now I don't see angels but I knew that when he asked me to do this that they were there and I thanked him for doing it. When we saw how those trees fell I knew that those angels had been doing their job and made sure those trees fell in the space between the house and the barn. They had stood back on the property at least as far back as the back of the barn and maybe half way over from the barn. They had to fall at an angle to fall between the house and the barn...maybe 20 feet?  I am not good at distance so that is a guess!!

Back to my questions:  we had trees that had fallen all over our property. Not just those three that landed between the house and the barn.  I think I counted 11 trees that blew down...might have been 15. After all, it was way back in 1985 when this happened and my memory isn't quite as precise as it used to be!!    With trees down all over our yard which was about .25 acre facing on a main east/west state highway with lots of traffic, I would have thought that many of the "Christians" that knew us would have stopped and offered their services to help us clean up the yard and buck up the trees that were fallen. We lived in a community with lots of loggers many of whom are "cutters" whose expertise is cutting down and bucking up trees.   I watched some drive by and none ever stopped even though they lived in the neighbor hood and often waved as they went by.   Instead, it was one of our "non-Christian" friends with severe back trouble who brought his Stihl chain saw and helped us clean up the property.

I am sure many of those Christians would have loved for my husband to have "attended their church services." 
But what was there that none could go outside their "religious framework" and meet people in the neighborhood where they live?

I am a drug and alcohol counselor and frequently people will say, "Oh how difficult a job you must have." Or, "it must be really hard to work with those people."   I used to hear the same when I worked in the nursing home with "older folks."  My comment today is the same as it was then, and a comment my husband is well known for saying, " They are just people." 

The essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that God has poured out his love at the cross TO ALL PEOPLE!!  There is no longer a measurement by which we are to measure ourselves or others as to their acceptability or lovability.  God paid the price in the death of his own son, to take away the price that we all had to pay for being more concerned with making ourselves feel good, wise, beautiful, than valuing the presciousness of our relationship with our Creator, Father, Saviour......

Who is loved by God?  Everyone!  Does everyone walk in that awareness? Of course not and as a result their actions may determine just how I share the kind of Love I know with them, but it neither qualifies or disqualifies them.  I have learned  in some very special ways this past year that many of the "categories" of behavior that we often define as unacceptable because they hurt our bodies, or hurt others, don't disqualify people from love.  And I am so thankful that I no longer have to wear my God Hat and tell others how "wrong" what they are doing is.  We find in some communities that this kind of judgement prevails on issues with strong pros and cons on both sides.  

A friend recently told me about a video she watched on Islam.  She shared how it broke her heart to watch and listen to the way it was presented. Yes, the facts about jihad and Shariah law are based on reality.  But Muslims are people. No one said Love would always be welcomed and True Love is sacrificial. It treats people with worth and value in the face of behavior that would maybe dispute the value of someone's life itself.  God's love in me does this. MY LOVE...well, it is short fused, limited, often based on my own values and standards, and my own personal self worth, which as a human being is always limited.

My friend told me with tears that as she watched the film on Islam that despite the fact that it was a "converted Muslim" that told it,  she didn't think it spoke of the kind of love that we who live in Christ Jesus will have towards people.  Do I treat people different because they believe that I am not important?  Do I treat people different if they don't like me?   If I do I don't yet know the love of God that I can live out of if I live "in Christ."  But then, do I always live "in Christ"?  Nope...sometimes I live out of my own way of thinking, my own desires, my own needs and demands.   So why wouldn't I be able to identify with anyone who might do some of those things more or less than I did them?  Does it make any difference if I did self seeking things in the same measure as another?  Maybe I never killed someone in the name of my God, but did I humiliate them, or call them a name, or ridicule them? Then in essence I am just as guilty of being in my self and not in Christ as any other person.

I think of the story of the Good Samaritan that depicts the kind of love God has for us in Christ Jesus.  He cared  for the person and was not as many of us are who look at a person and ask ourselvs if they 'deserve it." Are they the right sex, gender, race, color, attitude? If we are seen by God through such "standards" none of us are deserving because we aren't 100% which is what a Holy Almighty God requires to have fellowship with him. Yet, if we see ourselves through the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ, we are welcomed in the Father's eyes in the same measure everyone else is whether they see themselves that way or not!!

What good news it is that the Father loves us...and sees us not through the Law which condemns us, but sees us through the blood which covers and fulfills the law that Love might flow out to us and from us in increasing abundance as we share this love with others.

We will get this opportunity to live this kind of life on an increasing basis as this world continues to unravel due to the sin that is unleashed. We are encouraged as Christians to "extend the tent pegs of our tent"  over people.  It was never, "Come to my tent and sup with me" but Go, extend your tent over those that know not My Love.   We are called to extend the Kingdom...not build our own kingdoms and "congregations" for the praise of men.  God will build His own church, we are to extend the Kingdom and He will train and teach those we cover as we love them with the love of the Lord.  That love is full of knowledge, wisdom, counsel, joy, peace, patience longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and faith!


Meri ford