Love first, ask questions later

St. Francis of Assisi once said, "Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words." This is a statement that I have recently gotten to see in practice. Last week, I spent some time in Chile where I met an amazing family whose love for God is contagious. They have lived out their faith and have made it the central focus of their life. It was remarkable talking to them and hearing what they were doing around the world. Their ministry has affected the lives of hundreds of Chileans and has impacted the lives of many more around the world. Their mission has been simple and that has been to love others as Christ has loved them.

Sitting on the patio of my host's house, I saw this small stray cat. It was rather small and had clearly missed quite a few meals. At the time, it was trying to get at a small bit of water. I got down off the chair and attempted to simply show it some attention. Being a stray, it was unused to attention and thus ran off without any water. I thought about that for a while and how similar it was to the world. There are many people out there who have been hurt by Christians or have been turned away from Christianity because of some bad experiences in the church. They have seen us as hypocrites and judgmental. The reason why though is because we have often lost track of our vision or calling. We have traded it in for condemning others and making ourselves out to be perfect. In James it tells us that faith without action is dead. It says, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" (James 2:15-17) If we are to overcome the animosity against us we must first love and continue to love as Christ loved us. Just like the cat who was wary of people and needed first to be shown that I was trying to help, people need to see our message of love and hope and know that we care before they will be willing to listen to our message.

This is how my host has treated the small town of Iloca. Iloca is a small town on the coast of Chile where almost a year ago, it was ravaged by a Tsunami caused by an Earthquake just off the Chilean coast. While the people were able to get to high ground in time, many of the houses were completely destroyed. Many people were left homeless and many were left with nothing. Their entire livelihoods were taken by the Tsunami. My host and his organization has spent the last year building homes for these people. They have raised money and brought teams down from many different churches to provide this very basic need to the people of Iloca. Around town, he is known as Papo because of the work that he has done there. He has gotten to know the people and through his actions the town has seen his love and passion and has desired to know where it comes from. After a year of building relationships and 26 houses, the village has asked Papo to plant a church there. They want to know where the love that he shows comes from. They can see something different in him and the rest of his family and desire to have that same passion and love. Going to the first church service in Iloca, I was humbled to witness as many people came to listen to the message and subsequently gave their life to Christ, many of whom, were friends of Papo.

Too often we as Christians are so focused in preaching the Gospel that we forget to show the Gospel. We get into debates with people, we argue our viewpoints, we ridicule others, and we tell others where they have gone wrong and are in need of repentance. We forget that Jesus first showed His love to them. People around Him knew that He cared. They saw the love in His actions and eagerly listened to His words. Their desire for repentance stemmed from His love for them when they were strangers. Jesus desires us to love people and to share the Gospel with them. As Papo illustrated to me in Iloca, Chile, we must love first, and ask questions later.

Gilded Failure

Throughout history, man has sought to make himself appear better in the eyes of the world. I believe that this urge comes from our want or need to be a success in our own eyes. We have this fear of failure, because we know that something is wrong, something that impedes our ability to be accomplished. This desire to be something stems back to Genesis where it talks about how man was exiled from the Garden of Eden and how we were shamed by our nakedness. Once sin entered the world, we were filled with shame and guilt. Moses makes the distinction that Adam and Eve had felt no shame before eating the fruit despite being completely vulnerable and open. Ever since the Fall, we have tried to make ourselves feel safe, to feel protected from the judgment of others. We have built walls around ourselves to protect us from feeling like failures. We sense the sin inside us, knowing that something is horribly wrong, but we are left with shame and try to cover it up. It’s why we try and make ourselves seem better than we are. We spend hours at work, making money and advancing our position in society so that others will look up to us and we will gain some sort of value from society. We become worth something, some dollar amount.

From early on, I was involved in sports. I loved baseball and soon began to love basketball, volleyball, golf and any other sport that I could participate in. It wasn’t just about participating. It was about being good at it. I had to win. I am what you would call a competitive person, many of my friends would probably laugh and say that’s an understatement. I love the rush of doing well at something and the feeling of accomplishment after wards, especially when I win at something. I take great pride in being good at sports and playing those sports better than others. The thing is that when I get so obsessed with being better at something than someone I lose the focus of why I started in the first place. Rock climbing is a great example of this. I love to climb. I go to a climbing gym that’s pretty close by and I can spend hours there. While I’m there, I’ll try all sorts of routes and just try to get better and better so that I can do different climbs. Then I might go climb outdoors and just the thrill of climbing and seeing the views is so exhilarating. Last year, however, I decided to enter a few competitions. I thought it might be fun and since I was getting good, I might actually do well. Sure enough I did pretty well and won a bunch of gear. The thing was though, that it wasn’t as much fun as simply climbing for the sake of climbing. I had to worry about what others were doing, I’d have to rush through climbs so that I could get to other climbs and it was no longer about climbing, but winning. I wanted to distinguish myself from the rest of the field. I wanted to stand out.

I think my desire to stand out and to excel at sports or academics or anything like that stems from the same desire to protect myself from being a failure in the eyes of others. I think we all have this fear of failing. We know that we are filled with sin and because of that we feel as though we have failed. No matter what we try or how successful we become in the world’s eyes or even in the eyes of the church, a part of us still feels like we have failed. So we build up our walls and keep people at arm’s length to protect ourselves from being judged for failing. We take pride in our accomplishments and look for respect and admiration from others to help us feel a little less like a failure. It reminds me of the woman who was caught in adultery. She was about to be stoned by the crowd and they brought her before Jesus to see what He would say about what to do with her. After questioning Him, Jesus responded like this, “Let any of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7). At this, those around Jesus began to leave one at a time until only Him and the woman were left.

He looked at her and said, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?

"No one, sir.” She said.

"Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared, “Go and leave your life of sin.”

Those around her felt their vulnerability, felt their failures and because of that could not condemn her without condemning themselves. Then Jesus looks at her, the only Man to ever be without failure and He says, “Then neither do I condemn you.” God, who is without failure looks upon the woman who has been judged by the entire town to be a failure and has compassion and Grace. Despite her vulnerability and fear, Jesus gently but firmly forgives her and loves her. Jesus sees you at your most vulnerable moments, there is nothing that you have done, are gonna do, or have even thought about doing that Jesus doesn't know about. The thing is, He still loves you. He doesn't see the failure that you may feel, but rather He sees the person that He created in love and continues to love. What stops us from being open and honest with others? Jesus loves us and knows everything about us even the things that we try to hide from others. It's simple we have met with rejection before or we have seen the judgmental side of others in the past. We work up to being vulnerable with others. When we're open and honest with others and they accept us, we often enter into a deeper relationship. Our fear of failure holds us back from these deep relationships and the sense of community that Christ calls us to. I urge all of us to make a step towards being vulnerable with others. To be open and honest about our shortcomings and to accept the faults of those around us so that we can fulfill Christ's desire for our life in being deeply relational to a hurting world.

Sheer Silence

I sit here at my computer, gently tapping the keys as I type. I slow down my breathing and just sit in silence before my monitor. Silence can be rather unsettling and is something that I often seek to avoid. Personally, when I am sitting down doing something that doesn’t require any noise I turn on the TV as background noise. I attempt to drown out the silence with anything else. During the time I spent at Black Rock, I watched a Nooma video called Noise. It talks about the time that Elijah went up on the mountain and there he had the opportunity to hear the voice of God. He didn’t hear it in the earthquake, the wind or the fire, but heard it in a small barely audible whisper. I think about that a lot, how my mind is always going and trying to figure out my own path and how I seem to throw things at God not waiting long enough to hear His response to it. I just continue to ask God about other things in my life. I often wonder if He is just waiting for me to stop talking so that He can go ahead and interject His wisdom.

A couple weeks ago it was snowing outside and it began to stick to the ground. It was certainly a beautiful evening, but something about it really struck me. Late that night, I was watching TV and the dog needed to go out, so I went ahead and let her out. As I stepped outside there was a stark contrast between the TV and what was going on outside. I immediately turned off the TV and just stuck my head out of the door. It was so cool, because there was sheer silence. Normally if I stick my head outside, it doesn’t matter what time of day or what is going on I’ll hear something. For instance right now even inside my house I can hear cars moving along the road nearby, I can hear a plane passing over and dogs barking and the silent hum of electricity. That night however I heard nothing. The snow seemed to dampen all of the sounds to the point that I couldn't hear anything. The cars were either absent or the sounds completely muffled. No planes seemed to pass over, even the other ambient sounds were gone, left only with silence. It was amazing. I just allowed that moment to really fill me and allow it to impact me. I imagine that was what it was like for Elijah on the mountain. I believe that while he was there, he noticed a stark contrast between the world which seemed to assault his senses and the presence of God whose glory was able to stifle sound and left Elijah in awe.

I think, as Americans especially, we are easily distracted by sounds and things we hear. I don’t know what it is exactly about silence that is so uncomfortable. It’s possible that we hear silence and feel alone so we fill that void with something to have a semblance of company. There is a problem in this however. Without silence we have a difficult time truly listening to God. During my time in camping ministry, I have encountered the situation numerous times, where kids will be talking while I’m trying to explain something. Their inability to listen makes it difficult for them to understand what is going on next, which of course leads to frustration on both sides. Occasionally, we must be in silent before Him. We must let Him speak to us and listen. If we are going to follow after God, we will need to listen to Him and follow the example of Jesus by spending time in silence before God. It is only then can we truly hope to discern God's will for our lives. There are of course times in our lives that we must go to God and tell Him what is going on in our lives, but it is also vitally important that we allow God to respond. We have to quietly spend time in the presence of God, away from the distractions of the world and the busyness of life and simply be still and know that He is God. Only then will we be able to hear the "gentle whisper" of God.