Dear America,
A few days ago I wrote a blog about how great you are.
What I didn’t know when I posted that blog is that there was just something signed about not letting refugees into your borders. Yes, maybe it’s a temporary thing. But let’s all be honest, this is an ongoing conversation that will continue to happen until we get to Heaven. It doesn’t change that you are great but I do have a few thoughts on how you could become greater.
I wondered why that blog had so many views and my friend who has a heart for refugees, especially the ones from the Middle East, told me what was happening inside America. Now, it all makes sense.
And by sense, I mean it doesn’t really make sense to me at all.
I get it. You want to protect yourself and your children. You want to keep America great. You want to be safe. You want everyone to speak English.
You want to turn your eyes away and pretend that what’s happening in “their” country isn’t your responsibility to fix. You want to point fingers and put “them” in a box as a group of people who are going to blow up your country if you allow them inside.
For the last year and a half I’ve been traveling the world. I have locked eyes with people living on the streets. Working as prostitutes in bars against their will. Refugees living in Nepal from their war torn country of Pakistan. I’m currently in India where our location had to be changed before arriving because of the civil unrest that is currently happening in that location.
Telling people they can’t come into America is telling me that I can’t travel the world and tell people about this Jesus that I love.
I’m going into countries. I’m unsure of the language. I don’t look anything like them. I worship a God that they don’t. I have a lot of money in comparison to them.
And, I am welcomed with open arms.
These people invite me into their homes and give me tea and cookies even though they hardly have money to feed their families. These people shake my hand and thank me for coming and caring for their people.
The Bible says that we are strangers in a foreign land on this earth. It also says that He will not leave us as orphans. Jesus also talked to the woman at the well who no man, especially one where Jesus came from, would ever acknowledge her presence.
The Israelites escaped the slavery they were in to enter into a land that was promised to them. A land that was flowing with milk and honey.
Atticus Finch says something that makes a lot of sense… put people’s skin on and walk around in it. Then at the end of the book he says to get to know people and they don’t seem so scary after all.
I want to be a woman who is colorblind. A woman who doesn’t see people as colors or nationalities. I want to be a woman who sees people as what they are… a creation in the likeness of the God that I love. It says in Genesis that we are all created in His image. That means that the middle eastern, the African, the Hispanic, the American are all reflections and parts of the God that you worship.
I’m not really a fan of claiming Christianity and stiff arming His creation. I’m a lover of people and America, I wish that you would be too.
America, you are so great. I will say the same thing I did in my last blog… you will become greater when you see the goodness that is around you. The goodness that when you look at a stranger you are looking at a reflection of God. When you open your home to the refugee you are being Jesus to this world. When you give the homeless something to eat you are feeding Jesus.
Heaven is going to be one big party where we won’t care about the color of the skin of the person worshipping beside us because we will be worshipping the God we love in spirit and in truth.
And I cry out, “on earth as it is in heaven.”
I read a book called “Abba’s Child” about realizing that I am the beloved of God and loving people out of that understanding of His love.
“What is indiscriminate compassion? ‘Take a look at a rose. Is it possible for the rose to say ‘I shall offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people’? Or can you imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? It could only do that by ceasing to be a lamp. And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to everyone, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature- even to the one who seeks to cut it down. This is the first quality of love- its indiscriminate character.'”
-Brennan Manning
