Loving my neighbor

I'm just read an amazing book. I know, I always say they are amazing...but they really are! "The Dangerous Act of Loving your Neighbor: Seeing others through the eyes of Jesus" by Mark Labberton.

(Luke 10:27) "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind AND your neighbor as yourself." The author states that "the human heart is crucial to social transformation.  Changing our world depends on changing our hearts: How we "perceive", name and act in the world". In other words, our human hearts must be made new so that the world might be made new!  "People suffer daily around the world because human hearts are unchanged.  The practical and tragic consequences continue endlessly".

We can't say that we "love" God if we do not truly love our neighbor and not just the easy neighbors....ALL of our neighbors. The ones who are hard to get along with,. the ones who are so sad and are reaching out to anyone who will save them from the pit they are falling in, and even those that we are afraid of.  Truly loving God must involve loving our neighbor or......we are not loving God. Pure and Simple.

"The inner personal work of the grace of Jesus Christ is meant to show itself in the public lives of those who are Christ's disciples.  The test is not just how we respond to those who love us but how we respond to the poor and needy and even beyond that....our enemies!"

Mexico City is the pit of darkness. I am certain that if you are a new believer here, you will be attacked in a way that you are not prepared for. Don't believe in evil spirits? Come here to live. Decisions and actions emerge out of the distortions of their hearts, these things have become not only a part of "who" they are but "what" they are and "where" they came from:

*Alchoholism
*Wife/child abuse
*Violence in the homes
*Molestation of children by family members

And I am not even listing the obvious ones you read about in the paper every day, you can believe what you read. They daily strip the women and children of dignity, hope and innocence.

"Where we live shapes how we live". The author wrote this and this is true for Mexico. I am not preaching to you, I am trying to open your eyes if they are already not opened. Because mine have not always been open. I think sometimes we see so much darkness and need on the news that it is easy to think for that moment, "Oh how terrible" and then hope that there is someone who will intervene. We can "hope" that solutions  can be found, circumstances improved and wrongs be righted. We can think, "Well, that's just the way it is there". Injustice is what shows up when love is absent from the heart.

(Isaiah 56:6-9) "God's heart passionately desires justice, starting with the most vulnerable". (emphasis mine)

So I have had to evaluate my sight lately. How do I see the people here? Am I looking with my eyes wide open or with eyes that are closed? "If I am going to see the world in the love and mercy of Jesus Christ and perceive the people and needs of the world in a way that was truthful, then I need to see with the heart of Jesus".  These people our culture treats as "invisible".....God sees clearly.

(Micah 6:8) "To do justice and to love kindness and to work humbly with your God"

I used to look at the injustice of the world through different eyes...until it was my child that was bullied by mean girls and harsh insensitive words that were painted on the inside of her heart that turned her sadness into an eating disorder.....until, it was my child that was left in front of a store the very day she was born and screamed for her needs to be met in an orphanage where no one answered her cries, I know my daughter, I know she never stopped screaming and now she is still screaming for her needs to be met....until it was my daughter that once knew of her mother's love, the smell of her body, the touch of her hand and the sound of her voice and then at the age of two felt and exhibited grief that most of us never feel until much later in life.  These things slowly began to open my eyes to the culture in different countries and the darkness that they live in and are in bondage to.  It opened my eyes for my little ones to the situations their mother's were forced into by culture.  Now, I "see" every time I leave our home. I see the hungry, the abused, the violent young people who think they have no other choice.  I cannot escape it any longer.  The broken lives of others are all around me.  It often appears hopeless but don't they deserve hope? Any time we are in the car and you look on the sidewalk while stopped at a light, you can see the brokenness of the hearts. You really can see it.

I can no longer write myself out of their story.

Often we have children approach us for money.  We have made a family decision to give them food instead because we are certain they don't get to keep the money and you can figure out where the money goes.  When we hand them a bag of food, juice and other yummies, they always turn to look at the adult they are with and desperately look at us again and ask for money.  What is the story behind those eyes? Why do they look so fearful?  What will happen if they return to that adult, who may or may not be their parent, with no money?

I can no longer see with my eyes closed.

Our job has specific ministry strategies that need to be met.  Is that important? Absolutely!  But if we don't involve ourselves in their personal lives and find out their needs, not just material needs but find out and counsel any brokenness in their lives than we are just "playing church" with them.  We recently encountered a situation with good friends here.  Something happened in their family that has broken my heart.

I was angry and devastated but because I am called to love my neighbor as myself, I had to find a way to love them as Jesus loves them.  I was even mad at myself because I never really saw "this" coming.   I had to forgive....not ignore....only forgive as God has forgive me, the injustice that had occurred and pray about finding a way to restore their hearts.  In different ways and to different degrees the person needs to be restored and in many ways was probably a victim himself and now.....he is the Abuser.

This is my plea....we need you!  We need your prayers!  We are battling a huge spiritual dark force here BUT not bigger than my God! Please pray for:

*God to show us clearly the people we need to minister to and love on.
*God to show us the men and women that desire to reach their own country by spreading the name of Jesus.
*Our Spanish! You can never pray for that enough!
*Our health. My health has not been good since we moved here, pray that we remain healthy servants of the Lord.

And my last plea is this......YOU my sweet friends are in a missionary field also. You have the same people all around you...needing a hug or a kind word. All of the people need to feel God's love through us.  The abusers and the abused.  Keep your eyes open and I am praying for you also that you will love them with all your heart, soul, strength and mind:)