Loving Others
Been thinking a lot about Matthew 22:37-41 lately.
I have a lot of head knowledge about God, and He has done great things for me, but I can't say that I love Him the way I think He means. I do love Him with my mind, but I am not sure that my heart and soul are fully engaged. Honestly, my heart is probably half engaged. And my soul? I don't know.
And then, there's the neighbor thing. I have the me first american attitude. If I am taken care of, then I'm willing to extend my excess towards my neighbor. However, "love thy neighbor as thyself" suggests that whatever state I am in, I am responsible for raising my neighbor up to that state as well. Oh. Ouch.
When I start thinking about this, I start worrying about what I'll lose. I can't pay two mortgages like what I have now. I can't pay off a second set of loans like we just got rid of. I can't, I can't, I can't. Amazing how negative I immediately become. Somehow I don't think God envisioned this kind of economy as a losing economy. If I envision it as a gaining economy, if I don't worry about loss and concentrate on gain, where can I go?
We live in middle class suburbia. The poor are those whose financial mismanagement has backed them into a corner or those who bought too much house. The elderly or impoverished whose taxes are going to cause the loss of their house. Those who can't afford the rent increases as the area becomes more affluent. The sick are the disabled, and those in nursing homes. The pariahs are those outside the norm. I know there is more, but that's a starting point.
How to love them? Financial education, helping with payments, job training, caregiving, assisted therapy, big brother/big sister, desegregation. What else could be done?
I have a lot of head knowledge about God, and He has done great things for me, but I can't say that I love Him the way I think He means. I do love Him with my mind, but I am not sure that my heart and soul are fully engaged. Honestly, my heart is probably half engaged. And my soul? I don't know.
And then, there's the neighbor thing. I have the me first american attitude. If I am taken care of, then I'm willing to extend my excess towards my neighbor. However, "love thy neighbor as thyself" suggests that whatever state I am in, I am responsible for raising my neighbor up to that state as well. Oh. Ouch.
When I start thinking about this, I start worrying about what I'll lose. I can't pay two mortgages like what I have now. I can't pay off a second set of loans like we just got rid of. I can't, I can't, I can't. Amazing how negative I immediately become. Somehow I don't think God envisioned this kind of economy as a losing economy. If I envision it as a gaining economy, if I don't worry about loss and concentrate on gain, where can I go?
We live in middle class suburbia. The poor are those whose financial mismanagement has backed them into a corner or those who bought too much house. The elderly or impoverished whose taxes are going to cause the loss of their house. Those who can't afford the rent increases as the area becomes more affluent. The sick are the disabled, and those in nursing homes. The pariahs are those outside the norm. I know there is more, but that's a starting point.
How to love them? Financial education, helping with payments, job training, caregiving, assisted therapy, big brother/big sister, desegregation. What else could be done?
posted by Charlotte Wyncoop at 7:47 PM
3 Comments:
good post. sometimes it is easier to talk about and help the poor when they live in haiti or in the innercity. but when they are the people we usually deride for their choices, who don't fit into our middle class conservative economic ideals - then what?
Then I think we take the hard road. If they are financially inept, we strengthen them. If they have suffered setbacks, we help them.
If they are about to lose their house, need food, clothing, or medicine, we do what we need to do to make sure they are cared for.
If they are living beyond their means, do we support that? If Matt got a much lower paying job and we were unwilling to move, should we expect the church to finance our desired lifestyle? I would answer no.
I believe in tough love. We told my sister that her lifestyle would either lead to pregnancy or AIDS and God would not withhold the consequences of her actions. She needed to change. When she became pregnant, we told her that God had mercy on her. She was being put in a situation where she had an reason to turn her life around if she kept the child, or if she chose to abort it, she would live with that and continue on. My father urged her to abort the child because he felt that if she kept it, it would ruin her life. We offered, either decision she made, to walk with her through it.
Obviously she kept Jacob, she turned her life around using him as a motivator.
I don't want to deride people for their choices - the consequences they suffer for them are bad enough. However, compassion for them means that I want to assist them in whatever capacity they want and need. People's choices should be respected, even if I don't agree with them. I make my own choices though about how I respond.
I don't call that "tough love", I just call it love. Tough love (which to me is usually a negative term - an excuse some people use to not actually have to show grace or real love) would be like the parents who think they're being loving by kicking their daughter out of the house if she gets pregnant.
I think you guys did the right thing. Real love (or I guess even real "tough love") means letting people experience the consequences of their sin, but helping them through those consequences and not just heaping more consequences on top of them.
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