Brothers in Humanity

Every few months we get new staff at work. We hire in bulk three times a year and train them as "classes." With each class comes a new set of faces, personalities, giftings, and struggles. Each one bringing to the table the light and darkness-the sin and the Spirit-that is embedded within every Christian.

Hurt, pain, insecurity, pride, stubbornness, bitterness, the list goes on extensively. It's irritating!

Looking at the struggles of my students, teammates, friends, and those that I would consider even family, I can sometimes find myself frustrated with them and their shortcomings. Impatient and ungracious towards their needs and struggles.

Christ said to love our enemies. He challenged the status quo and demanded that love be shown even to those who we don't like or agree with. "Love your neighbors" is one of the many coined phrases of Christianity, yet those same Christians turn their back on the impoverished and war torn souls that need help.

I have needed help, and in in my need I forgot to see other people's needs. Mine eyes are turned inward to my own pain and I have began to "self-care" in an isolated and unloving way. A reality that God made very clear to me recently.

I had a student in my English class in Amman that made a big impact on how I viewed other people. "We are brothers in humanity", he would say to me. The words loom over me like a ghost and my soul stirs in response. It's a sobering and humbling experience to receive true, biblical wisdom from a Muslim. Reflecting on the environment I'm living/working in, I find those words affecting me still.

These men and women that I work with are my brothers and sisters. They are mine and I am theirs. My team. My family. My people. How could I be intolerant of the sin in them when it's so clearly embedded in me? When they endure my own? (and they definitely do!) How can I neglect their needs and their craving for love and support when I know so intimately the needs and desires in me?

As a new team comes to join us at Shelterwood this week, my prayer is this:

"Lord, bind us together in brotherhood and sisterhood. humble us to be loving and caring for each other just as You humbled Yourself for the sake of our souls. Tighten us together and teach us to hear form each other and to heal together, to be light to one another. Help us to find rest and support in our 'family' and let us not be unloving. Amen"


Grace and Peace,
Stephen

If You're Going to Look, You Might as Well See

I once heard this quote by G.K. Chesterton that made me shout out "Yes yes yes!" The quote went like this, "The tourist sees what he came to see; the traveler sees all that there is to see." I want to be a traveler and not a tourist. I don't want to just see the fancy, beautiful attractions. I want to see everything! This was how I lived when I lived in the Jordan a couple summers back, and then in Italy the year before.

I wasn't in the Middle East to see the Jordan River or Petra. I was there to truly see; to be apart of the lives of a people group I didn't know and barely understood. When in Rome I was there to see the people, hear the subtle differences in accents from those in Venice
, the difference in clothing and food; I looked for the patterns in the stone road ways just as much as, if not more than, the architectural feat that is the Colosseum.

Upon my returning to the U.S. of blessed A. I found myself struggling to maintain the same mindset that I had in other countries. I was failing to see what I was looking at. People, culture, needs...life was happening right in front in front of me but I didn't "see" it.

This is how many people live their lives. Living as tourists to their lives, here to see what they came to see and not seeing what there is to see. As a result people die without truly being a part of the world around them and without experiencing the fullness of life. By "looking" but not "seeing" we do an injustice to God's creation and to the humanity that we are a part of. We do an disservice to our fellow believers, fellow humans, and even to ourselves.

What are you not seeing? What details are you brushing over? Do you see the painting and not notice the delicacy of each stroke of the brush or the mixture and manipulation of colors that were used to make said painting?

Don't just look....

See.


Peace be with you always,

Stephen.