How is the new school year treating you? Are you busy?
This year Jen and I can say that all three of our kids are in school. Matthew is in 5th Grade experiencing his first male teacher. Katie is in 1st Grade experiencing her first spelling list. Jack is in Kindergarten experiencing a whole new world. Matthew's teacher is in a rock band. Katie's arms are covered with Silly Bandz. Jack is the "student of the week," running around looking like an Ewok in an oversized t-shirt.
Needless to say...after two full weeks of school we found ourselves pretty tired this past Sunday afternoon! What used to be a well constructed Sunday dinner became pizza rolls, and our family time consisted of watching the Detroit Lions football game.
Amid busy lives that yield jam-packed days, it sure is easy to focus only on your own tasks, troubles, needs, and plans. But I'd like to invite you to look at the world from a vastly different vantage point - through the eyes of "unloved others."
God calls his followers to represent Jesus Christ not just to people who look the same, act the same, talk the same, and vote the same way that you do, but to every man and every woman who needs his care.
People, in the words of theologian Klyne Snodgrass, "who refuse boundaries for the identification of neighbor and instead love even their enemies."
With this in mind; I'd like to ask you to consider the following questions:
What does it mean to be disenfranchised?
Who are the "unloved others" in the area where I live?
How can I share the love of Christ with them in both word and deed?
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27