Here comes that nasty little word that they told us at training camp to try to remove from our vocabulary for this upcoming year. Expectations! You know my current struggle? I expected to love on people this year. Through words, actions, and just being present. I expected it to be easy to love on the kids with no parents, those who have lost loved ones, those in poverty scraping to get by, those enslaved in human trafficking, those in the prisons really trying to turn their lives around, or those just feeling completely lost.
Here’s the problem with that list. It doesn’t include EVERYONE. Which is what we’re called to do.
1 John 4:11-12 – Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
No mention there of loving only certain groups of downtrodden people. It’s all about Loving Each Other.
Yesterday I struggled with that. Personally, it was easily the most frustrating day I’ve had thus far on the World Race. Mainly because a lot of people were brought across my path whom I had no interest in loving.
- The older kids (age 10ish) at the basketball court beating up the younger kids (age 6ish), therefore ensuring that this circle of violence they live within continues on, because the only way they know how to solve problems, is beating the snot out of each other. I’ve seen fights before. Heh. I’ve worked with military youth so that’s nothing new. But yesterday I felt completely helpless to do anything other than physically separate children literally every few minutes.
- The parents of said youth who aren’t present in their lives. Who aren’t letting them know that what they are doing is not acceptable.
- The men who are the product of the hyper sexualization of society here in the DR. The cat calls and “psssttts” directed at the girls. At the end of last night I directed a comment towards a group of them, that while not inappropriate, still wasn’t reflective of who I am in Christ or reflective of the love that needs to be given to everyone.
- The man (who apparently is one of the bigger drug dealers in the area) and his buddies who decided to park themselves right next to our group at the Crusade last night and proceeded to take video on their phones of the people around them, particularly females. Which meant constantly stepping in front of the video. Which took away my chance to enjoy the event. On top of that, we heard from one of the locals that they go to these events looking to take people home with them. All I really wanted to do then was just slug someone.
God, why wasn’t I warned ahead of time how hard this would be? I thought this would be one of the easiest things to do. To just love those around us. Turns out its one of the hardest right now.
God, grant me the patience to love ALL right now. To realize that no matter where they are at in life right now, You created them. That You love them. That I’m no better than them. That they are just as deserving as love as any of the people I expected to love on over this next year.
(Today’s our day off. I do hope to get a more joyful post up later today still, before leaving for another round of remote villages, regarding the Crusade taking place over the last 4 days. Don’t get me wrong, so many wonderful things are happening here. Loving others is just the bigger issue on my heart right now.)
