My heart is broken

My heart is broken...that our politicians who proclaim to be Christians are first being politicians, and then being Christ followers. Our Christian politicians are acting and speaking from a place of fear: fear that if we let in Syrian refuges that they could be terrorists, fear that they will hurt our economy, fear that they would not protecting our homeland by putting these refugees first. "He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be answered," Proverbs 21:13. These politicians are not responding to the cry of the poor, but rather to the cry of the fearful Americans whose vote they are trying to win. They are letting politics and the impending presidential race dictate their positions, instead of standing for what Jesus would stand for. And that just makes me want to pull my hair out and scream! How sad that we are allowing fear and politics to push aside our proclaimed faith, and that we are refusing aid to those in need because of a perceived potential for burden.

My heart is broken...that as Christians we are praying for the refugees, but are not praying for those fighting with ISIS. We are called to pray for our enemies and to love them, despite the harm they are doing. What would it look like if we were to pray for ISIS, if we were then to quickly welcome refugees into our country and into our communities? What would it look to not let terror rule our emotion, but rather let the love of Christ and the love of His people rule our hearts? Prayer is so powerful; what if we were to use that as our weapon? The only thing we are to fear is God; not ISIS, not terrorists, not the what if's of this world.

My heart is broken...that we are doing exactly what ISIS wants for us to do: fear all Muslims. Earlier this week I heard an NPR episode in which a journalist explained that ISIS wants for the world to fear all Muslims, essentially pitting their religion against the rest of the world. Isn't that what's happening right now? We are so fearful of a member of a terrorist coming into our country pretending to be a refugee that we are refusing to accept any refugee (this fear coming from one of the Paris attackers who did just that). Ah! My heart! We are letting the fear of one incident be the basis for our reasoning to shut out all refugees.

My heart is broken...that we are living in a broken world. We are called to SERVE the poor, to LOVE the poor, to be in COMMUNITY with the poor. We are not to discriminate, we are not to live our lives in fear. As Christ followers we are called to live as Christ did. I tried for a long time to ignore the news whenever ISIS or Syrian refugees were mentioned, but then it became increasingly harder to ignore. I knew that once I started listening my heart would be tugging, asking "what can I do?", "how can I, way over here in America, help these people?" And now there is talk of us accepting these refugees into our country and I feel like the cries of "NO" are way louder than those of "yes". I don't want to get into the questions of "what we do with them once they get here?" "what kinds of problems would a sudden immigration population increase cause", etc. I just want to love these people. I don't want my life to be ruled by the fear of what if's. I am so certain that Jesus wouldn't even hesitate to welcome these people into His home, yet it seems that as a country we can't even welcome then into our country. Why is that? Why are we so far away from living like Christ?

My heart is broken.