Today was a somewhat challenging day at work filled with helping intoxicated and drug addicted people get back on their feet and matching them with available resources including bus passes, shelters, clothing and of course food. The problem lies that as they begin to sober up they are angry....mainly at themselves for relapsing, spending all their money or being ticketed for various things...but they take it out on the one helping them. I was called about every name imaginable and was threatened in many different ways just by HELPING them. I would say that at one point I wanted to give a few of them " a piece of my mind"! After all, I deserve respect, right? I mean...I earned my RN license and I have authority here to do what I want. In a moment I can call the police over to escort these people off the property...they better not mess with me!As one patient began to act out because she wasn't getting the attention or the medications she wanted she started tearing out her very-tightly knotted and very dirty weave out of her head and throwing the pieces on the floor....I began to laugh and I could not stop. Now...I know that it does not sound very professional BUT I felt like I was losing it. The lady (who was not in her right mind) said, "You think your better than me? I see you laughing at me. I am not crazy....I just don't have anybody or anything. Just because I am homeless doesn't mean I don't deserve respect."
Well those words rang true to my heart. I wasn't loving these people, I was looking down on them. I was judging them by their smells, their dirty clothes and bad behavior. Perhaps Jesus' teaching to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12: 31, NIV) is one of the absolutely hardest ones to grasp. Sure, that seems easy enough—until you really think about what it means. He didn't say "like" them. He said "love" them. And you don't get to pick who your "neighbor" is...It's everyone around you whom you might come in contact with.....even at work.
I'm thinking Jesus' expectations were a tad bit too high. I mean, can you truly love someone like you love yourself? The neat thing is that he wasn't in the heavens just commanding us to do this...he was here on earth experiencing it. At the Last Supper, Jesus was in the same room with a bunch of betrayers and he knew it and what he did was wash their feet. Wow...kinda a hard thing to do, huh? These guys didn't deserve his love and respect but he loved them anyway. Jesus didn't pretend....he actually served them.
Serving gives us an easy way to see how we should love. It's not just some mushy emotion but an action. When you serve someone it has a way of changing the way you see them. If you are trying to really help someone with your whole heart then it's very hard to think they're worthless. You are giving them everything you have. Serving is getting your wants, desires, titles or agendas you have for yourself and putting it on the back-burner for someone else with a spirit of humility and respect. But of course none of this is possible in our own abilities....it takes the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and give us that supernatural ability and that is accomplished by drawing near to God. Love will flow out of us naturally because we are His vessel.
Loving someone doesn’t mean we have to agree with them or their choices. Loving someone means we hope our actions on their behalf work for their benefit, to build them up, maybe even change their bad attitudes or help them to become easier to love and most importantly, that they learn to be a little more like Christ themselves. Of course they may not respond or do anything to show appreciation for what we have done. In fact they may reject everything we try to do for them making us want to just throw in the towel in frustration. But we know that God never gave up on us so we are never going to give up on people.....because they are all in fact our brothers and sisters and no one EVER should EVER give up on family!
Adjust that crown,
Jonna
