What I’m learning about God

When things first started happening—when the protests began—I was certain which side I should be on. (Spoiler for my conclusions so you don’t stop reading: I still believe that all Black Lives Matter and we should fight for human rights). I looked at Christians who disregarded the current events or even spoke out against them as wrong and I judged them. Hard. So hard in fact, that there are some people that I can’t even look at anymore because it brings up anger within me. I didn’t understand how good, God-fearing people could be so… ignorant. 

And then I realized. It’s just that: ignorance. If only I could just open their eyes, show them what’s really going on, then they’ll understand. 

Oh, no. It doesn’t work that way. I can talk and talk and talk and they’ll just deny every bit of evidence I show them. Sometimes the conversation were even more infuriating because we could agree and agree and agree and then suddenly, when it came to the end, our conclusions would be totally opposite, and that just made no sense to me. 

And then I thought to myself. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe God really is a judgmental and hateful god. So I turned to His Word for the truth, which is what I should have done all along. 

And what I learned was life-changing. 

Jesus did things that ENRAGED the religious leaders of the time. He taught contrary to what they believed the Scriptures meant, showing that they had misunderstood for all those years. He was compassionate and merciful. 

Compassionate and merciful got Him killed. 

Compassion means someone else’s heartbreak becomes your heartbreak. Another’s suffering becomes your suffering. 

Mercy denotes compassion and love, not just feelings or emotions, as expressed in tangible ways.

Jesus’s incredible, countercultural compassion and mercy defined His ministry and ultimately got Him killed by the government. 

If compassion is making someone else’s suffering your suffering and mercy is expressing that compassion in tangible ways, would it not be at least logical to think that Jesus would be on the side of the oppressed? In fact, he is always on the side of the oppressed. He made a practice of inviting to His table the sinners, the poor, and the socially left-out. He healed and forgave and stood up for them. 

I can’t say that Jesus would attend a protest. I have no evidence to back that up. Jesus was counter-cultural. Not only did He disrupt the system, He did it in ways that the people He helped were not expecting. The people expected a warrior king. Jesus came as a humble servant simply pointing people back to God, and still He changed the world. 

So that’s what I want to strive to be. I want to be a humble servant that points people to God and changes the world. Right now, I believe that pointing people to God is doing the work to show who He cares for. And I know, from God’s Word, that He cares for the sinners, the poor, and the socially left-out. The oppressed. 

And right now, that means the Black community. And I believe that we need to express our compassion in tangible ways and have mercy. Mercy enough to alleviate their earthly suffering. We need to stop denying that their suffering is even real, and we need to own up to our part in it. 

It may not look like what the world is doing. But that doesn’t deny that fact that it still needs doing. So I’m going to step up. 

Article: Black Lives Matter in the Bible

Written September 2020