Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract
or scare?
Will you let Me answer prayer in you and you in Me?
--John L. Bell and Graham A Maule, 1987
What would be the impact on a life of ‘leaving self
behind’? What transformations could happen
from walking away from the mirror, and looking out the window, then walking out
the door? How might old patterns be broken and rebuilt through new pathways of
truly selfless service?
In this hymn full of questions, challenges arise. Two of the
most challenging questions are set loose in this verse. Is the way we care
for people affected by the demeanor of the needy? Can we care for both those to whom we are naturally drawn,
and to those who may annoy, anger, or
repulse us--showing the generous love of a God who loves us fully at our most
unloveable? This question has me returning to take a look in that mirror I was
talking about earlier.
Likewise, how prepared are we to be outcast for how
fully, and how freely, we love? I have been
challenged to see how very many times in the gospels that Jesus faced
resistance and anger--not for restricting his circle of love, care, and
acceptance; but for the times he drew his circle outlandishly wide. Are we
ready to love so deep and wide that our lives send people (even
people that look like ‘our people’) running
for cover…and throwing stones?
And what if all of this turned out to be what prayer
looks like, with skin on?
