I read a post the other day, describing a statement from a man who aged out of foster care, and spoke at the 2013 CAFO Summit, mentioned by Stacey Jackson Gagnon from Ranson Israel.
Here is his quote…
“When I grew up in the orphanage it was Christians who came and built nicer buildings. Christians who bought us beds, clothing and provided money monthly for food. It was a Christian, who wrote a letter in a shoebox, who first told me I was loved. It was the Christians who met all my physical and material needs in that orphanage.”
“But it was also Christians who neglected my biggest need. Children in orphanages don’t need more money, nicer buildings or better clothes. I am not an orphan because I lost my home or provisions. I am an orphan because I lost my parents. I needed a mom and a dad. I needed a family. Christians treated all my temporary symptoms of need but never cured my longterm disease of being orphan. I am still an orphan.”
God has been speaking to me a ton recently about giving vs. going and loving the ones he puts in front of us.
- Giving can ease guilt or comfort our ego, but going and touching and being near the broken requires us humbling ourselves, pulling up our sleeves & getting our hands dirty.
- Giving is clean, safe, & relatively easy. Loving tangibly & practically is much harder and often messy.
- Giving allows us to remain distant and separate; physically, but also logistically & emotionally. Truly loving requires us leaving the comfort of “our side of the road” or the comfort of our pew, intertwining ourselves with the hard, looking people in their eyes, getting low, & actually letting compassion stir our hearts to lay down our lives for others.
Don’t get me wrong, I too long to build orphanages in other countries, give my finances to bless those people doing radical & amazing ministry.
In fact, we must be like the disciples who were asked to give everything away, then come follow Him.
But what if we each ALSO individually, gave part of ourselves away? Risked the comfort of our safe lives and died daily to extend a hand practically to another who was hurting?
How might the world change? WE change? How might the “face” of Christianity look different to a world, more recently perceiving Christians as distant, judging, or hypocritical?
Shouldn’t they know us by our love? Shouldn’t love be more than throwing money at a situation?
God has been convicting me lately that real love is action. And yes, it’s hard, & messy, & might leave you completely exhausted when your head touches the pillow at night.
Yet, Jesus didn’t die for “easy”. For us to transfer funds to some ministry, just so we can sit back comfortably in our recliners, stroke our ego, somehow convincing ourselves that we are a “good” person.
In fact, none of us are good, are we? Isn’t that why we need a Mediator?
As a result, today, I am thankful for a Savior, one who didn’t just sit back & love me from a distance, but pierced heaven to die and sacrifice His One sinless life so that I could experience freedom.
And I am ever so grateful He “did hard” & came near…
In my hour of need.
I am rejoicing today, that we serve a God who gives more than heaven’s resources, but also was the perfect example of what it means to really love compassionately & perfectly, sacrificially and selflessly…
So that I could be more than some hand-out….but a part of His family.
