Love People Where They Are

Love People Where They Are

I’ve told a story for years now and the other day I came across its centerpiece. This Aerosmith concert t-shirt from their 1990 Pump tour.

I was living in another state working as a day care provider during the day and a bartender at night saving for a trip to Europe. Three of us were living in a one bedroom apartment with a donated couch and mattresses on the floor. 

Ah to be young and carefree! 

Closing a bar at two in the morning was not glamorous.  We’d call the last call, cash people out, clean out the bar swill (all the spilt alcohol that mixes together to make a stinky brown concoction), wash dishes, mop the floor, and head home.  By the time I got home and had a chance wind down, it was four in the morning. Sometimes I just fell asleep like that. Sitting on the couch, second hand smoke in my hair, nasty swill smell on my clothes.....

Knock Knock Knock!

Ugh, who is knocking on my door on a Saturday morning? What time is it? Oh, 10 a.m. I guess most people would be up by now, but I’m only on my sixth hour of sleep.

Groggy with who knows what kind of bedhead, I answer the door to greet the nicest well-dressed religious door-to-door people you have ever seen. And I’m wearing this Aerosmith gory t-shirt. I’m sure I was a sight!!  They probably thought they had some easy pickings with what looked (and smelled) to them like some hung-over metal head who didn’t know God from.... well.... Adam....

“Hello, can we speak to you for a few minutes?”

Sure.

“We’d like to talk to you about Jesus.”

Yes, I know him well.

“Well did you know that......”

Yes, I did. And yes, I do read the Bible. And yes, I do have a personal relationship with him. And yes, I have asked him into my heart as my Savior. And yes, I do pray with him daily......

I don’t think they bought a word of it.  And I can’t really blame them.  In that interaction, how could they know my heart? How could they know my past?

I bought the shirt because the back had the words to my favorite song on it, Janie’s Gotta Gun, a song about a victim of sexual abuse who takes the situation into her own hands and shoots her abuser. It was dark and scary looking. Being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a friend’s father, the song meant a lot to me and the dark and scary look of the shirt represented how I felt about the situation. 

The shirt and other choices I was making reflected where I was at that time of my life, but that journey wasn’t without God. He was there with me. Holding my hand.  Loving me THROUGH the pain.  I was still a Christian.

How many times do we see other people and judge them because they don’t LOOK like we think they should? Instead they wear clothes are less conservative than ours, they drink more than we do, they just don’t follow the rules like we think they should?  Do we come at them with that judgement like, “I need to let that person know they are sinning!”  Or do we come along side them, love them, and leave the judging up to God?

I’ve grown since my twenties and it’s not because someone “fixed” me.  The growth I’ve done has come from the Holy Spirit convicting me and growing me. It’s come from inside me. It’s come from knowing God more and learning what pleases him.  

So, where do people fit into this equation?  It’s the ones that loved me where I was at that helped me move along this journey.  Ones that welcomed me in the door at church regardless of what I was wearing or how late I walked in. The sweet girl in my college Bible study that described me as “colorful” because I swore like a sailor even at church gatherings.

Love people where they are. If we judge them and get snotty about the little things, how are they ever going to know Christ and let him into their hearts in order for him to shape them into the diamond he intends them to be?

WHAT ARE THINGS YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED FOR THAT AREN’T WHO YOU ARE NOW? WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LOOK PAST IN ORDER TO LOVE OTHER PEOPLE THAT COME INTO YOUR LIFE?