What do we see, and what do we learn when confronted with fallen and broken humanity. I’m not just talking about the lost, though they are obviously included, but I’m also talking about the redeemed who have not yet been completed in their journey. Do we only see the dirt and the dung, and the differences from us? Or do we see as Mother Teresa saw, “Jesus in His distressing disguise,” teaching us how to love? Paul said that as a new creation in Christ, he was controlled by the love of Jesus, and therefore he no longer recognized people according to the flesh, according to the surface. Do we feel threatened by the beggar, indifferent towards the poor as we hastily go about our “important” schedules? Are we disgusted and angry with our spiritually staggering sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters in Christ who aren’t where we think they should be on their journey? Maybe Jesus is calling us to get down in the dirt with them and to save our anger for the enemy who is ultimately responsible for their broken condition. Maybe Jesus is wanting us to see Him, in their eyes and their rebellion, crying out for help. Will we be burning one’s who allow our union with the heart of Christ to burn up our frustration, disdain, and sense of inconvenience so that we can stop everything else we are doing just for them? Love is the only thing that I know that the Scripture says “never fails.” I know that there are times when we have to draw boundaries and hold the broken accountable, but there can never be boundaries around our hearts. Is this a hard thing that Christ has called us to? This call to love from the inside out those who are either grotesquely impacted by evil or who are willfully participating in evil can be extremely difficult for us in our own incompleted journey in Christ-likeness. Even the strain is a gift from God. By exposing our imperfection in stewarding His love to the unlovely, God is pulling us in with the crook of the shepherd’s staff to seek Him behind the veil with greater intentionality until as a very dear friend and fellow bond-servant in Christ just recently told me “our hearts grow twice as big on the inside” as the darkness (that we are called to run towards and to shine into) is on the outside. The struggle to embrace and manifest our union with the love of Christ for all mankind is a call to move deeper inside the chambers of God’s heart until we become fully consumed by the love of Christ. It is then that we become true burning one’s, not just before God, but before Man, on God’s behalf.
