James 2:12-13

"Mercy triumphs over judgment!"

So this week we read and learned to be full of love and mercy and treat everyone by the same standard that we would want to treat ourselves, without any favoritism. God taught us this week to love and serve others, everyone, without regard to their wealth or status, or seeming importance, or their appearance. They are all souls, unsaved and saved, needing love, craving mercy for their many shortcomings...like we are.
Everywhere in the Bible, God cautions us about judging...criticizing...too harshly, the many others around us. Yet I am so guilty of this and feel sorrow over bringing harm to a sitution that could've been healed with love.

How do I think I can possibly understand another's heart, motives, happenings...if I myself hardly comprehend my own?? It sobers me.

But it also lifts a weight. I am heart-light that I don't need to figure everyone out. That I must only love and err on the side of showing mercy after mercy. God will make all things right if I am wrong. Because love always wins.

We learned this week to give of ourselves in this way, sometimes tangible, but not always so. There's the immediate situations all around each of us, of men and women, little ones, needing love, needing one thing here or there, that we want to attend to. Christ's love inspires us and spurs us to desiring to make such a difference. But what about those outside our elbow's reach? I'll say it's a safe bet that all of us have longed with a gut-wrenching longing, to help in a greater way in the world. To give up things and love those far away and destitute in faith and possessions.

Hubby and I talked at dinner the other night about having children - and what it might be like to also adopt one day. It brought up radical feelings in me. I crave an experience much like what he went through with his family during young years, living over the sea in a place of great need. I wonder at the life-altering effects of such a time.

And I wonder, in my selfishness, whose life am I looking to change - mine or theirs???

But maybe it's not selfish to want to change both.

Girls, Ann at A Holy Experience - a blog you probably know by now I love :) - writes a whole series on her experiences in Guatemala, and I encourage you to take a peek by reading the following post. It's ridden with beautiful pictures, and words from a moved heart. 

When You Want the First Step in Fixing a Broken World 

Jesus says in Matthew 26:11 that "the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me." It's important to remember that our own relationship with the Lord is of first importance. Also, there will always be those poor and needy in our world - we can't FIX the problem.
But, following Jesus' example of healing and feeding the sick and poor, our lives too should be filled with efforts to help.

The smallest act of kindness is the axis that revolutionizes the world.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)

Love on, girls.

Have a wonderful weekend, :)
~Cait