“Ahmed” is an ordinary man. He works in the food industry. He’s one of thousands of migrant workers/refugees/displaces people in Malaysia. When I had my first conversation with him I was surprised when I discovered he was Syrian.
Even though I’m far away from the U.S., the recent blowup in about the Syrian refugee crisis affected me more than I realized. I thought I was above the fear and suspicion that was running rampant through my homeland. Apparently, I was not. It’s embarrassing for me to admit it, but it’s true. I had many preconceived ideas and hosted a flood of hypothetical situations in my head.
Thankfully I can say that my eyes and mind were opened wide during my 2nd conversation with my new acquaintance.
He was respectful and kind and open. He took time to listen and ask me questions about my life while opening up about his.
As he spoke, with excellent English, I heard his story unfold and my heart began to soften for the people of Syria. Caught in the midst of war, staying in Syria would mean killing friends no matter which side he chose. At his mother’s request he is now a refugee at the age of 30.
Separated from family, he has been attempting to make his way in a country that forbids him to work, yet provides almost nothing that would make it feasible for him to survive. Once he was even arrested and thrown into jail for a whole month while his UNHC card was “verified for authenticity” and then suddenly one day he was released. He brushed it off as no big deal, but seriously can you imagine living your life like that?
Now Syria isn’t just a country I hear about on the news. It’s people are no longer masses of faceless wanderers.
Now my prayers are different. Now my heart is more tender. Now my tears fall more easily.
Sometimes we forget the people that are affected by the circumstances beyond their control. We have a knee-jerk reaction to the unknown and allow fear to govern our actions and anger to fuel our position to defend our “rights.”
We’ve become too caught up in our own lives to stop and really see the people that are sitting next to us on the bus.
Every person is valuable.
Each person is worthy of love.
If you’re a Christ follower there’s absolutely no loop hole on this one. We are commanded to love even our enemies and bless those who persecute us. If we’re going to be like Jesus then we’re going to have to start building relationships with people outside of our small groups. We going to have to be brave enough to initiate conversations and start making connections and even getting our hands dirty.
If we want to shine brightly, we’re going to have to go to dark places. If we want to grow, we must root our inner man in the Word of Life, we must have teachable hearts and we must not be narrow minded and agenda oriented.
It’s time to shine, Church. It’s time to love with no agenda. It’s time to see others as Jesus sees them, but we must die to our narrow-minded views and crack open our hard hearts.
This won’t be convenient or comfortable, but those things have nothing to do with following Jesus anyways so you can go ahead and throw those excuses out the window. It will be mind-blowing, world rocking, and life changing for you and for those you encounter.
We must decide if our political agendas and self preservation are worth more to us than the gospel. Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing? Have we become so blinded and selfish that we’ve forgotten the foundational blocks of compassion and relationships?
It was good for me to be confronted with my prejudices and skewed preconceived ideas even though it didn’t feel good. When we engage in the struggle the opportunity is created for growth and depth and maturity. May we not shy away from the hard things. I continue to believe that it’ll all be worth it in the end.
