Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.”
For the past month, this passage has been on my heart. It is crazy how God can bring in a passage of scripture that will just completely wreck your view of how you see the world. He has been taking off the lenses of how I view the world, and slowly reshaping my eyes and heart to see the world as he does. It hurts. It hurts to begin to see the world as he does. The injustice, oppressed, hurting, sick, and the wronged. It hurts when he shows me how I have been viewing the people who are truly oppressed, when the only thing they are doing is fleeing oppression and trying to find safety and freedom. It hurts when I view the United States and see how we are treating people who are fleeing oppression to the most free country in the world only to be denied. And we deny them because we are “full”, or because we have labeled them a detriment to our society, or they dont have the proper documentation, when in reality the oppressors will not give them the proper documentation to be able to enter legally. We are setting them up for failure and then blaming them for the failure.
What about the Conservative party? I would make the argument that a majority of Conservatives would label themselves as Christians. In the Conservative party where is the compassion for the refugees? Where is the abounding amount of grace for them? What is our heart posture when it comes to them? I think a good heart check is to just turn the news on and watch for just a little while. The first thoughts that come to your mind is a good indicator of where your heart is. Does your heart break when you hear of these oppressions? Or does the blame shift to someone or something else? I am not blaming you for the problem but now that you know of the oppression now are you going to do? In the verse I posted in the beginning of this post, it says that it is better for you to be dead rather to know of oppression, that it is better to have never been born than to know of oppression! But I was born, and I am not dead. So what do I do now, that I do know of this oppression.
The idea of a country was invented by men. God did not draw the lines between Canada and the United States. Men drew those lines. I did not choose to be born in the United States, but I was. Why should I be treated any different than someone who was not born within the United States. We are all created in the image of God, we are all his precious work, we are all his children. So why are we treating each other based off of a man made nationality rather than brothers and sisters? Most people are not directly affected by the boarder crisis, but think about it. There has probably been many brothers and sisters that have been turned away just because they are fleeing oppression. We are turning people away because we are seeing them not in their true identities. We use phrases like National Security, MS13, and illegal alien to label and classify. In doing so we are blind to the real issue at hand.
This is just me being raw right now, this is my heart. This is how God has been working on my heart this past month. I am far from being done on reflecting on this topic. One thing I wish for everyone is to be able to read the Bible and have it continue to transform your heart as it has transformed mine. I am hurting because I see “Christians” being far from Christ like. I am not advocating for open boarders, what I am advocating for is that we begin to see the world through the lens of Christ.
