Love Regardless

Three people walked past the Jewish man bruised, bloodied, and left to die and only one of them stopped to walk toward the man who was hurt. The two people who knew the most did the least. When we get next to people who are hurting and broken, our hearts begin to break. A heart of compassion isn't just for some people who work with the most vulnerable in our communities; it should be the mark of everyone who is a follower of Jesus. It's a mark of those who are pursuing the great commandment. 

If we are going to live with a heart of compassion, proximity matters. We can't have a heart for what we don't see or understand. The miracles of Jesus happened when he was proximate to people’s problems or when people expressed problems they were facing. Jesus constantly responded to what he saw and heard. I grew up in a community known for poverty, crime, and violence. The challenges in our community were not just a result of individuals' decisions; they were a result of the decisions of the previous generation. They were a result of decisions made to draw red-lines around specific communities. Those red-lines then led to red dots, where survival became the goal. The red dots, which represented homicides and violence, led to overcrowded prisons filled with black and brown men. The crowded prisons represented a generation of fatherless children and youth. These children and youth began to repeat the generational challenges and stories of the previous generation. 

From the outside, it's easy to talk about "those people" and to question why people act the way they do. But, when those people become my neighbor, and I get to know their stories. I understand that their lives reflect the decisions of others. Living next to children and youth raising themselves in a context that doesn't offer the same resources or have the stability and capacity to help them reach their total potential changes how I see them. The closer I get to those different from me, the more compassion I have for their story. When we decide to live 'REGARDLESS,' we become intentional about getting proximate to different communities and people. Those who are different are our neighbors. To have a heart of compassion, we must be in proximity to brokenness.