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Help we could all use
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Thursday, July, 15, 2010
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by John Fischer
Imagine you are a single mom with three kids to drop off at school before going to your first day at a new job. On a slippery, rain-soaked street, you go into a slide and skid into an accident that all but totals your car. Compounding the problem is the fact that it isn't your car—you borrowed it from a friend because yours needed to be fixed and you didn't have the money yet to fix it. So in fear and trembling you call the owner of the car to let him know what happened, and all he wants to know are the answers to three questions: 1) Are you okay? 2) Are the kids okay? 3) Do you have enough money for a cab? Yes, yes, and yes, you say. Good, he says, then get on your way, young lady. You have an important day ahead of you and you can't let this stop you. Leave the car, I'll send for a tow truck. Now be off, and God be with you.
What happened there?
1) No judgment.
2) Help. (A lessening of the load, not another burden.)
3) Encouragement with dignity.
Now that's the kind of help we could all use!
Life is hard enough as it is, to not add the pressure of being good Christians to the burdens on so many backs. And what makes this even more tragic is that the added pressure so often comes from the only true source of hope anyone has—those who forgot they are ambassadors of the grace of God. When those who represent the unconditional love of God start laying down conditions for acceptance, love and understanding, where are the rest of us going to go? We need to come alongside each other and help—no questions asked—not run our spiritual Geiger counters up and down everybody's faith.
"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior." Habakkuk 3:17-18
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