F.E.A.R. Excluded #priceless
I met a girl this past semester and I learned a lot from her. But I think the biggest thing I learned from her is that people matter, every single person matters because of what Jesus did.
When my friend walks across campus she doesn’t see anyone as a stranger. She talks to everyone and remembers them. For her, love is a constant living part of who she is and what she does. Life has excluded her from so many things. This world let her down from day one, but instead of being bitter or sullen about this, she seems bent on never excluding anyone else.
Maybe because she has known what it means to be left out, she has determined to never leave anyone else out.
I’ve seen this game of ignoring and avoiding others since the first grade playground. Now at college, I see the same game. I play the same game. I exclude people for different reasons and others exclude me for their own reasons. But it’s a game I’ve grown comfortable in. It’s a game where no one wins.
And I think that the fear of being excluded can factor into how engaged we choose to be in life—especially in new opportunities. But what my friend taught me was that Jesus never saw people as mistakes or inconveniences, so neither should we!
Remember John 3:16? It’s that one verse I think of first because I learned it over and over again as a little kid. It’s simple but amazing!
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
He loved the world. The entire world—all of it, with all the chaos and suffering we created in it. He did not exclude anyone from His glorious gift of redemption. So how can I excuse the games I play where I ignore and avoid those around me?
It infuriates me to look back on history and see how nations have excluded entire races for nothing more than the color for their skin or their ancestry. But then I find myself quietly excluding others for how they dress or how they talk.
Tonight, I heard one friend say of another, “In all the years we’ve been friends, I have never once heard her say something negative about anyone.” I doubt anyone could say this of me. Negativity breeds negativity, but we should endeavor to not leave others out nor talk negatively about them.
This year I read Everybody, Always by Bob Goff. This book was even more radical than Goff’s other book Love Does. Goff challenged me to think differently about love and people, and about how God wants us to live on this earth.
Goff wrote, “We’re all rough drafts of the people we’re still becoming.” I don’t want people to mark up my rough draft with their criticism, but that means I need to extend that same grace and patience toward them.
Goff also wrote, “You’ll be able to spot people who are becoming love because they want to build kingdoms, not castles. They fill their lives with people who don’t look like them or act like them or even believe the same things as them. They treat them with love and respect and are more eager to learn from them than presume they have something to teach.”
It’s time to stop building castles (and those high walls). Let’s build a kingdom.
1 John 4:7-9 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.”
I want to see strangers not as strangers but as people who God created and who Jesus died for. People who I must and will learn to love.
My anti-fear song for this post is Priceless by For King & Country. I love this song because it sings out the message that every single one of us is made priceless through the blood of Jesus Christ.
“I see a rose in bloom
At the sight of you
Oh, so priceless
Irreplaceable, unmistakable, incomparable
Darling, it’s beautiful
I see it all in you
Oh, so priceless”
We are each priceless, and the love of Christ has placed such value on every human life. You don’t exclude something priceless. You don’t turn your back on someone who Jesus crossed the universe to seek out and save.
It may take the same measure of bravery to stop excluding others as it takes to remember that no matter how often you are excluded, you are irreplaceable, unmistakable, incomparable and priceless.
I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes from Bob Goff. Listen to the truth in these words and figure out what God is whispering to your heart.
“What is it that you don’t think you can do? What do you think is too big for you? Or too scary, or too risky? Sometimes God whispers it, and sometimes, he shouts it. Whatever the volume, I bet he’s always using the same three words with us: Be Not Afraid.”
