The R word ... and my Reality

My heart hurts.

Not because of innocent people being maimed and killed by criminal thugs.

Not for the man kneeled into death by a criminal thug cop.

Not for the business owner who spent his life’s savings on opening a business, only to see it burned to the ground by evil anarchists.

No, my heart hurts because I’ve been blind.

My political leanings, my upper income status, my impatience with so much, and so many other personal roadblocks  have all blinded my heart to truly see each and every person as a human.

Though that human may do dastardly and evil acts, though that human may pander to a base they care nothing about, though that human may take advantage of social systems, I let my blinded heart not see that they too need God, they too need love and understanding.

My reality was sucker punched this past Sunday, listening to a message from TD Jakes.

I realized, yes, I do often look at a black man different through my white-person lenses,  instinctively judging, categorizing and yes... profiling.  

From my mouth, “I’m not racist.”  

From my heart, “yes you are” says God.

Today, thinking on all this, God whispered to me this thought:

I didn’t give my only Son as a living sacrifice for y’all to hate, to maim, to murder, to burn down.

I gave him to forgive us all and to love one another.

Friends, I for one, have not loved enough, I have not tried to understand enough, I have not sown peace and healing.  And all this was God’s truth in that sucker punch.

Racism. An incendiary subject. But one, truthfully we avoid, deny, hush. 

We live in vacuums of our own safety, teaching God’s grace but not the truth, Jakes said.

TD Jakes, an internationally renowned black pastor, in a recent interview said, “This isn’t about race. It’s about humanity. 

We need to love better, get out of our comfort zone and see that this is a human issue, he pleaded.  We need to speak up, and see the character of the heart , not the color of the skin.

And the painful truth - one that many whites - including me - want to silence and not believe is that there is systematic racism.  We must acknowledge this truth, and find out how we can fix it.

Carl Lenz, pastor of Hillsong East coast, said,  Yes, all lives matter, but you know what it’s also ok to say Black Lives matter!

And right now friends, whether justified here or not justified there, blacks as Jakes, said “we are bleeding.”     

We cannot discount their pain and their fear.

We must put aside our prejudices, show up, speak out, and prove we care about them, just like we care about any other human.   No matter your skin color, we must care about every human: white, black, brown.

In the end, we all want the same: to be heard, to be loved and to be treated fairly.

And friends, in the midst of this awful calamity, the lawless anarchist spreading fear,  and seemingly endless personal destruction, we -  especially the church, especially believers - at this moment in time have a chance to wipe away years of misconceptions, of hidden prejudices, and press reset.

To reset our minds, hearts and souls to really love one another.  

To see each and every human like God does:  as  a child to be loved.

I pray for forgiveness for my blinded past heart.  I pray that God continues to lift the scales from my eyes, and I see each human just like God does, and can love relentlessly just like my Father does.  And I pray all go to Jesus, to find the way to love more.

Peace, love and cheers to all humans!