Those Who Are Different

In thinking further about last weeks post from Darren Patrick on intentionally pursuing relationships with people different from us, it reminded me that this is one reason why I like the Jones Valley Urban Farm so much. They are NOT like me in many ways. Many of the participants would consider themselves to be "green". A few even think that Al Gore is a rather sane individual. We would see eye to eye on relatively few things. But then again, that is exactly where we are called to be as believers, daily standing eye to eye with people we don't naturally see eye to eye with. And not merely to change them, but to seek ways to love them.

So what will it be like to hang out and seek to listen to and understand people who do not believe that Rush Limbaugh is the Second Coming along with his disciples Hannity and Glenn Beck? Will it be uncomfortable? Was it uncomfortable for the Creator of the universe to subject himself to the fragility of a human infants body? Metaphysical discussions of the incarnation aside, we are called to live lives interacting with people outside of our natural comfort bubble. And the goal is not simply just to "win conversions".

We are called simply to love God and to love people. Step one is to admit we do BOTH of those things incredibly poorly. I think here at Oak Mountain, by God's grace, we have made astounding progress in understanding that we do not love God well. We understand that we do not love God well because we cannot love God well in our own strength. We are broken and rebellious (and dead and blind, etc). This then leads us to rely fully upon His pursuit of us, by grace, in order to walk daily with Him. I truly believe God is doing a work among us in that area. Praise God.

Now, for the whole loving people part. Again, let's admit that we do this incredibly poorly. We are a selfish and narcissistic people who at times care more about the contents of our portfolio than we do about the contents of our neighbors pantry (or their heart). We must understand that we do not love people well because we cannot love people well in our own strength. We are broken and rebellious (and selfish and narcissistic, etc). This then should lead us to rely fully upon His ability, by grace, to change our hearts in relation to the people around us. We must ask God to give us His heart for the people around us. This is the only way that we will begin to love outsiders with anything remotely resembling the love of Christ.

What will this look like? I must say I don't fully understand the ultimate reality of what this would look like, at least in part because we will not completely get there until Christ bodily returns and puts right all things that are so visibly wrong, including the way we relate with the non-believers God has graciously placed in our path. (Okay, I understand that there won't actually be non-believers when Christ comes back, but you get what I am trying to say.)

I don't know what sort of odd and uncomfortable situations God will call us into, but I will admit that I am really looking forward to the day when Oak Mountain is known as "that grace church" not just for how we relate to God ourselves, but because of how we pursue "outsiders" in love.