Last year I had the opportunity to travel to 11 countries and serve in various ways (if you didn’t already know that).
Throughout that experience I saw at first hand a different, more severe kind of poverty than what is typically experienced here in the U.S.
(Philippines: pumping water from a well that supported hundreds of displaced families)
(Swaziland: kids receiving what most likely was their only meal for the day)
And if I’m not too careful, I end up glorifying that experience and making it into something it wasn’t meant to be.
I’ve been home from the race for almost 10 months now, and anyone who’s talked with me since then knows I want to go back.
I cannot tell you how often I’ve thought or have said the phrase “I just don’t want to be here…I wish I were in __________” (one of the countries I visited – more often than not it’s ‘the Philippines’). And while some of this does stem from a genuine desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus, part of it is also due to other reasons, including the desire to escape the lack of community and the materialism that is so prevalent here in the States
While on the race I discovered it was easier to love the impoverished, the forgotten, the handicap, and those whose worth had been distorted by the society in which they lived. It wasn’t easier in the sense that it came without prayer or help from the Lord; however, it was easier in the sense that I wanted to love those people more.
And since being home I find it harder to want to love.
It’s harder for me to want to love the child who would rather play on their electronics, and make me work for their affection.
(A common thing on the race: acting as a jungle gym for kids)
It’s harder for me to want to love someone who complains frequently, especially of having nothing to eat, when their cupboards and refrigerators are full of expired food. It’s harder for me to want to love the legalistic church-goer who believes salvation is dependent upon the non-essentials (i.e. drinking alcohol, tattoos, etc.).
Over the last few weeks, though, the Lord’s revealed to me that I’ve been choosing the people I want to love, and that I’ve been reserving the call to love and serve to a time and space outside of my current location.
In one of my devotions that talks about our “brother” in 1 John 2, it says, “There is a kind of Christian attitude which enthusiastically preaches love to people in other lands, but has never sought any kind of fellowship with its next door neighbor or even managed to live at peace within its own family circle. John insists on love for the man with whom we are in daily contact.”
Another separate devotional said, “Ministering as Opportunity Surrounds Us. This does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectly God’s in any haphazard surroundings which He engineers for us. The characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings.”
Talk about a blow to the heart! If I’m not choosing to love those in my immediate surroundings, what does that demonstrate to those I do decide to show love to?
By desiring to serve and love a certain people because of their circumstances, and not specifically because of my love for Jesus, I’ve skewed what it means to be a missionary…and, not to mention, I’ve neglected to love and serve my neighbor in my immediate surroundings.
A missionary (in my words) is one who is sent by the Lord to love and serve Him and His people somewhere, be it abroad or in one’s home town. It should not be one who desires to go & serve as a result of an escapist mentality, or because it’s the easier option when compared to the other.
The Lord’s been reminding me that while people in the U.S. generally don’t experience poverty and suffering to the same degree that many do in other parts of the world, they nevertheless do suffer and are impoverished in other ways. And they need love, too. Otherwise, I’d be declaring one life more valuable and deserving of love and grace over another (and that’s not up to me).
It’s like what we were told right before we left the country last year for our 11 month long journey: “Your love for the sick orphaned kids cannot be greater than your love for the person next to you – your teammate.”
In the end, I do not want to say that the Lord doesn’t cause our heart to burn more in certain areas, or that it’s wrong to want to serve among certain people groups. What is wrong, however, is when we limit our desire to love and serve those people only, thereby limiting the work of God in our lives to certain surroundings and people.
If and when the Lord presents an opportunity to “go” and serve again, I know my calling in the meantime is to love and serve my neighbor in the same manner I would to an orphan in the third world. After all, the World Race was not meant to be a one time service opportunity.
So, the challenge for me and for you is to love those God has placed in our midst. To love our neighbors, not any more or any less than those whom we find it easier to love already.
