I am learning (more personally than before) that there are things in our inherent worldviews we need to let go of, which need to be torn down in order for us to see the hurting and the overlooked.
In this process I am asking these questions: Why has my culture become so comfortable with segregation in our churches? Why do we hold onto fear toward anyone who doesn’t look like us? or fear for those who come from a different religion than us? a different country? different skin color? Why have we done all of these things instead of embracing radical, selfless, gospel-centered love?
Our example is Christ. And we are to be constantly conforming to His image while letting go of the worldviews that we have been born into that have become habit, WHEREVER and WHENEVER they do not align with His image.
And His image is this:
There is a love that lays down His life for his enemy, seeks out the outsider and welcomes her in with open arms. There is a love that overflows with compassion toward the oppressed and overlooked and weeps with the brokenhearted- no matter how different she looks to the world around her. He sees her soul, her humanity, her heart.
Jesus is constantly teaching me that following Him means dying to self and everything I thought I knew in order to reorient my life to His ways. This sanctification is a constant experience on the road of following Him and is a process that not a single one of us can opt out of.
The following words are my reflections regarding this painful yet necessary growth for you and me, which is required in order to live a life of love and compassion.
There is something glorious, something holy that is taking place in your soul. Things are shifting, ever so slightly but slightly enough that a dramatic change of perspective is taking place.
As you are letting go, slowly, painfully, one shard at a time of the western white lenses you see through- your heart is growing larger, your soul- stronger, your faith – more confident.
As you examine the house of your worldview that you’ve lived in for all of your years, you’re finding some mold in places you never thought to examine. There are termites eating away at the wooden frames and you sit here in the middle – feeding them more wood.
“Feast away,” you say.
With each story of another that you enter into, you get to take a sledgehammer to a part of that wall with the mold.
As you do, you see people. Through the jagged holes you see the suffering, hear the cries of the oppressed and you listen to them- unobstructed by the moldy wall that needed to be destroyed a long time ago.
You invite her in- the one with piercing eyes and the suitcase full of trauma and she opens it up for you. You nervously pick up the remnants – letting the pieces of her past cut deep.
She begins to read a scrap of paper from her suitcase – “a prayer- she says. That I have clung to and God has answered.”
“Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who do me violence my deadly enemies who surround me.”
Her faith emboldens you.
though you are broken by her story,
you are also strengthened by it,
You weep together, inside this house with the torn down walls.
It’s not easy to tear down the places of our worldview that we have become so comfortable with. But trust Christ that when you allow Him to tear it down, he will build it back up on a strong and lasting foundation- His Word and His own life.
I am hopeful for revival in American Christianity which will tear down these places and build them back up on the selfless love of Christ.
