5 Days Of Loving Others With Settle My SoulНамуна

The Color of Love by Karen

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. — James 2: 8-9

I sat in the quaint Southern café that afternoon, spreading honey on my piping-hot biscuits. My adult daughter and I had taken her three-year-old goddaughter, Naomi, who is Ethiopian, to meet a friend and her seven- year- old daughter, who is also Ethiopian by birth. The girls colored with crayons on placemats while the three of us adults visited.

At one point during the meal, my friend’s daughter reached her arm over by mine to grab a napkin. I noticed we both had on shirts that were the exact same shade of teal green. “Look, Aster! We match!” I observed, stretching my arm out toward hers so she could see our identically colored shirts. A puzzled look came over her face. It was then that I knew what was happening.

Slowly, she pulled up her sleeve, revealing her beautiful ebony skin. She then touched my pale arm, shook her head, and said, “No, we don’t.” My heart sank. I meant that our shirts matched. She thought I was talking about our skin. 

I have become increasingly aware of how often I fail to see life and situations from the eyes of those who do not share my race. Or those who are marginalized, left out, or weary from how society treats them. While my, “Look! We match!” assertion was an innocent oversight, the little girl’s reaction has adhered to my heart as a reminder not to always see the world from my own point of view, whether racially, economically, ethnically, or otherwise.

Today’s Scripture passage from James sums up the royal law: love your neighbor as yourself, and don’t show favoritism (2:8–9). These are always the right things to do. Oh, we may argue that we do love and don’t play favorites, but often the partiality is subtle— such as in thinking that our ethnicity, race, or life situation is the default without giving thought to the other person’s perspective and experience.

Let’s begin today to be ever mindful of even the slight ways we might make others feel insulted when we aren’t sensitive to the particulars of their life’s journey in our culture today.

Father, You do not show favoritism but offer salvation to all regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, social status, wealth, or ability. May I be sensitive to both the plights and the feelings of others and treat them with the love and respect that is in keeping with the royal law. In Jesus’ name, amen.

What can you do this week to reach out and show love and acceptance to someone who is different from you in life experience, race, religion, or ethnicity? Spend a few moments praying for love and understanding in our culture that will fight against favoritism.
 

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