Sin Welcome Here

I want to be like Jesus. But I'm not. And sometimes, I don't want to be like him at all. He is exactly what I am not. Being like him can actually give me a stomach ache. Or a headache. Jesus rarely punched people in the head. At least, no one wrote it down if he did. I can't find the scripture that says he punched somebody in the head. So I guess I'm not supposed to punch people in the head. But I want to. So I'm not like Jesus. But I don't, so I try to be like Jesus.
Being like Jesus involves risk for me. He is constantly (at least when I let him) changing my insides, my thoughts. There are ideas that I have been so sure of that I would've said they were from God himself. Then somewhere down the road, those thoughts are forced to change when circumstances show me that my own ideas just won't work if I want to be like Jesus. I can usually give you some kind of speech to convince you that I am taking some higher ground approach but I know in my gut, I am not like Jesus.
In the last several years this has been shown to me when my ideas also happen to be the easier way for me to handle something. Jesus didn't take the easy way. The idea is that someone who continually breaks trust with me should be pushed away from me. This way they will feel the isolation of their actions, become repentant and then be inspired to change. Seriously, this has been a theory of mine for almost my entire life. Added bonus, I can dump the losers who treat me like crap. Beautiful.
I don't want to be that person any longer. I want to be the safe harbour. I want to be so able to show mercy that I don't even register the offense as mine but the hurt as the offender's. I want to skip over the whole discussion of exactly what happened and just offer restoration. Hope. Love.
I've had a million and one conversations where I tried to convince someone that they were doing wrong. I've debated and I've begged people to change. I've usually taken the route of holiness which means I remind them of eternal damnation as a result of their behavior. This has not had a good return on affecting change.
This in fact, has come to seem to me like domestic abuse. The spouse who says "I don't want to hurt you, but you made me do it." I don't want to turn my back on you but you leave me no choice. Bring your dirty laundry to me and I'll use it to suffocate you.
I'm not pointing this at anyone but myself. I know good and well that my loner personality has made it very appealing to quickly turn people out into the world to think about their actions until they can repent. Then quite a few years ago to my own surprise, God laid this incredible love for a kid at our church into my heart. This kid was not likable. He was a liar. He was sneaky. He would lie to your face without batting an eye. He would promise you the world with tears running down his face and leave you looking like a fool for believing him. Just the perfect candidate for my theory of someone breaking trust one too many times. Without warning and certainly without my asking for it, God put this kid deep into my heart. And I didn't even like him in the first place.
We were sitting in Sunday School and I'm trying to teach and as usual this kid is alternating between snoring and making obnoxious comments. I tried to quietly reprimand him and I tried to threaten to kick him out and nothing worked. He didn't care. But on this Sunday morning I walked behind him and put my hand over his and held it while I spoke. Not tight, just a gentle hand over his. I hadn't been begging God for direction. It was just a moment that happened before I thought it through. In honesty, I can remember whacking this kid in the head with my teacher's book on prior Sunday mornings.
But that day, I held his hand. And he quieted.
Over time, I reached out to him with true affection, with the love that Jesus had for him. It was love that I could not find within myself. I spent lots of Sunday mornings with my hand over his in Sunday School. I spent lots of time rubbing his back during church while he sat with his head down tuning out the sermon. I earned the right to tell him to hush when he was being obnoxious because I spent more time holding his hand than shutting him up.
He'd call me in the middle of the night with problems and I'd sit up talking to him quietly, trying not to wake the Mr. He'd stop by my house and I'd drop what I was doing to give him my full attention although it never seemed to have any effect on his life. The only change, in fact, was that I was now in the inside of his life instead of the outside. And the only thing he really took from me was my love. He remained, otherwise, a liar and a trust-breaker. And those lies and broken promises were directed at me as often as anyone else.
He'd call me pretty regularly and tell me what was going on. What was messed up. Ask me what he should do.
One night at 2:00 in the morning, there was a knock on our door. There he was. Had a fight at home. I talked to him for a long time. I hugged him and tucked him in on our couch when he finally fell asleep. The Mr. called off work the next day to make sure he was OK because I had to go in.
Speaking of the 2:00 in the morning thing, this is when God chose to talk to me about this rotten kid. I'd wake up thinking of him and wouldn't be able to sleep until I had prayed for him. Now I was giving up my waking and my sleeping time for a kid I didn't really like. Only I really loved him all of a sudden.
I loved him so much that I was driven by selfishness to keep my door open to him, I couldn't stand the idea of losing him. It would hurt too much. Hurt me too much.
In the middle of this I started to understand that this is how Jesus loves me. So much, so deep and so real that he himself hurts at the idea of my loss. It was the first time I understood that, about being loved by God.
This was when I became a person who wanted to be a safe harbour. I want to be able to extend love without judgement. I want to show mercy and grace to people who can't conceive of it. This doesn't come easily to me. I don't like being awakened to someone banging on my door at 2:00 a.m. I hate talking on the phone. But I will open the door and I will answer the phone. I don't care about the details.
There are a million ways in which I could love more like Jesus. This is one that I now embrace. With complete acknowledgement that I am being fooled, manipulated and making it easier for someone to keep on doing wrong; I am going to love. I have to.
It hurts too much to do anything else.



John 8
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

11"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."