Loving only from a distance
Last February, I published a poem by Jamey called “I am homeless” in a post called “God loves the homeless“. God used Jamey’s poem (among other things) to continue to move me out of an apathetic, loveless Christianity toward a life of demonstrating his love to others. I still have a long way to go, but I think I’m moving now.
I recently found out that Jamey now has her own blog called “A Life Transformed“. She recently published another poem called “Kept At A Distance“:
I was so lonely and needed your friendship
I really wanted to talk with you
But you didn’t have the time
You always kept me at a distanceYou were eager to give me food
But you would not sit with me at a meal
You did not want to sit with me for a while
You always kept me at a distanceYou spoke about the love of Jesus
but your actions spoke something else
Because the love of Jesus I know
Would not have kept me at a distance
Our family is learning to love people up close and personal, like I talked about recently in my post “No produce, just relationships“. We’re certainly not perfect. We make mistakes all the time. The difference now is that when we make mistakes, we’re already part of the people’s lives. We’re learning not to only love people from a distance.
Have you only been loving people from a distance? I don’t mean those people who are like you – act like you, live like you, look like you, smell like you, talk like you, believe like you, etc. I mean, other people – people who are different from you. Have you been keeping them at a distance?
I have in the past. It was always easier to send money or go serve people on the rare Saturday morning for a few hours. I’m learning to get involved in people’s lives by building relationships with Muslim refugees. They are wonderful people that Christians could learn a great deal from.