So, I'm on my way to work and having a conversation with someone which then prompts me into meditating on some things that have been spoken of before. I pastor a church as well as work a job as an addictions counselor with brain injury survivors. I have worked with the disabled for over 19 years year (March 7th marks my 20th anniversary of the day I started trainings). I love seeing people move ahead in life, get through trauma, healed, restored relationships, etc. Each time I describe my work to people, they look a bit cross-eyed at me and make some comment to the effect of "better you than me." So, Why?
Seriously, that was a question, Why is it better me than someone else? Why doesn't everyone do this? Why don't more people go on mission trips? Shouldn't that be part of the qualifier to prove you are born again, that you have spent time in another country (or at least another neighborhood) bringing the love of Jesus?
Yet, if I believe we are called to a purpose, which I do, then it makes only perfect sense as to why me and not someone else. Sit down, before you continue your rant, I am by no means saying that I am better than. I am simply different than. As you are different than me and that other person over there as they are different than both of us. We are each wired a little differently according to the purposes we are called to. This actually makes total and perfect sense. If we were all wired the same, then there would be a lot of something that couldn't get done. Paul uses the 'body' when speaking about the church. That the hands aren't part of the body because they aren't the feet and the eye isn't part of the body because it is not an ear……the ear serves the purpose of hearing, the eye of sight, the hand of work and the foot of going, etc.
The next time you are having a conversation with someone, especially a non-follower of Jesus Christ, think about it. The fact that they don't have patience for dealing with the "little brat in the back row screaming his head off" makes perfect sense if you keep in mind that first we are all wired for our purpose/destiny and secondly that the great equalizer in wiring, the fruit of the spirit (Galatians chapter 5), only comes as a fruit of the Holy Spirit whom comes at the point of being born again. If someone is not born again and they weren't called to a purpose that would require, let's say six or seven extra helpings of patience, tolerance and long suffering, it makes all the sense in the world for them to respond with a short fuse and a not so friendly opinion. They are merely doing what they are wired to do. (I used a less flattering comparison earlier to a dog peeing on the rug—it's their nature, not like you can really get mad at them given a lack of doggie DNA which directs them to use a toilet.)
If we could get this, imagine the difference it would bring in being able to meet out mercy, grace, forgiveness and love? As you look at the face of the man who gets mad at his teenage son for continuously returning to the addiction, you, the born again baptized in the Holy Spirit follower of Jesus Christ who has the fruit of the spirit within you can step in, forgive the man, forgive the son, love on them both and pray for them both. What a blessing! You being able to see where they aren't wired right now, where the wires have crossed, shorted out or been corroded, you working hand in hand with Holy Spirit can become the spiritual electrician that would be able to offer them peace in the situation.
The young man who does not seem to possess the stomach to visit his elderly grandparent in a nursing home….what if he is simply responding out of the way he has been wired? Wouldn't now be the time to set aside judgment and condemnation for him not "loving his father/mother/grandma or whomever enough to visit them? Wouldn't now be the time to be the blessing to, yes, I said you be the blessings to him?
We are called to love people where they are at. That is what Jesus does. He meets us where we are at. (Like him, however, I am sticking to my guns that we are expected to stay there.)
Just imagine the difference it can make in the lives of our churches(families) if we were able to come to this understanding. Imagine sitting there and rather than judging the "jerk" who is bad mouthing ________, you instead accept that right now they are wired differently and merely acting out of their own wiring, which may be very "fleshly," as some of my Pentecostal brothers would put it. In that moment, you begin to pray for them. You begin to allow God to flow into the situation. You turn the cursing into blessing, the condemnation into mercy and allow God's grace to flow.
Sounds to me like it would move a lot of hearts and souls and would certainly show forth exactly what the love of Christ looks like.
Blessings and peace brothers and sisters.
No comments:
Post a Comment