What will it take?

How good must my life be and how awful does someone else’s have to be before I am prepared to do something about it? This is a question someone raised at a prayer meeting last week. She and her husband had been asking themselves that question. It has stayed with me as I have gone about my comfortable everyday routine. What will it take to cause me do something?  

I struggle to accept my own apathy and inability to really live like Jesus in every way. The trouble is that I make excuses to myself. I have become quite adept at it too; after all I have had a life-time of practice. It is easy to promise myself I will do something when the children are bigger or when I know what I ought to do or when I have more time or money or energy or… What will it take to make me do something, I call myself a Christian, a disciple of Jesus and yet I do not always live it.

It is easier to compare myself with others around me and to say well, I am better than him or not as good as her. Doing that is fundamentally flawed because I should not be interested in comparing myself with my peers but I should be concerned with comparing myself to Jesus and his call on my life. The idea of waiting, holding back is not one that I find when I read the bible.  I John 2.6 says, ”Whoever says “I abide in him,” ought to walk as he walked.” Jesus did not hold back.  At the service on Sunday night we sang the song Brother, Sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you. This is a powerful song with challenging words and if I mean what I say to God in song then I need to see Jesus in all the people I meet. I need to look at other people no matter who they are and love them like Jesus loves them.

It is easy to love people you like and get along with. It is harder to love the unlovely, the difficult, the weak and the vulnerable. It is difficult  to love those who are different to us but that is what being a disciple of Jesus calls us to do.

I don’t want these words to be empty words thrown thoughtlessly out into cyberspace. I have to start somewhere so I am going to sign up to take part in the Godhets festival this year. I am also going to take a walk around town when the good people of Sandnes are safely in their homes and I am going to attempt to look with Jesus’ eyes.