Not so different after all

After a long series of international flights, I found myself hungry in Bangkok at 2 am, so I set off with a few others to find some food.  The night life on this busy street was in full swing, and we sat down at a small, cramped table.  Tired, and giving myself license to be judgmental, I started to criticize the scene that bothers me every time I visit that beautiful country:  so much prostitution and exploitation of young girls.  After a bit of ranting I began to realize that one man near our table was listening in on our conversation.  What was equally as obvious was that he fell into the category of men I so easily condemned.

One of my coworkers began a friendly discussion with him, and I left him to it and continued a discussion with Sarah*, a field worker for Pioneers in East Asia.  What a contrast!  Instead of exploiting the vulnerable, she, for years has served them.  She has done more for the vulnerable, poor and hurting in her area than any one person I know.  She loves and respects the people she serves, and loves the place to which God has called her, despite the many sacrifices she’s had to make to be there.

As we talked, her weariness came through.  Surrounded by such stark need, no sacrifice seemed like enough.  The weariness was giving way to a sense of inadequacy and failure.  In a moment of raw honesty she wondered whether God looked at her with disappointment.

In that instant I was stunned by the realization that hit me.  In my line of sight sat Sarah, and this man that I looked on as the lowest of the low.  Could there be two people any more different?  And yet, as I sat there looking from one to the other, I realized that what drives them both, though in different directions, is a hunger for the love of God.

For the first time, I felt compassion for this man, and others like him.  His destructive actions are really futile attempts to meet the needs that can only be met by the love of God.  This missionary before me confessing her sense of inadequacy is also hungry for the love and approval of God.  If it could be earned, she’d have it; but it can’t.  It’s given just as freely to her, to him, and to me. 

This life-giving love is what we as believers have to offer to a hurting world.  There are times when what we have been given so freely is forgotten and we go back to our futile attempts to earn it, or satisfy the hunger in other ways.  But it is free, and available, and the compassion that drives us to share it with others is not based on anything that can be earned.  The pure and unconditional love of God is offered to the exploited child, the one who exploits, and the one who seeks to help them both.  Who can comprehend such a love?  Who can earn it?

And this is our calling: to share the good news of this great love, indiscriminately, even as we explore it ourselves.