"Last night I was listening to that song Rainy Night In Georgia. You know that line where he says, 'I feel like it's rainin' all over the world'? I listened to that and I just thought, 'Wow. What can make a brother feel that bad? What can bring a man so low? Just, wow.'" - Arsenio Hall

Apologies to those not old enough to remember the Arsenio Hall Show (no relation to Jon Hall, at least I don't think so). But, I remember when he said the above in an opening monologue once. I was probably in high school. For some reason, what he said struck me and I thought about it a lot. The fact that I recall it now, 20+ years later should indicate how big an impression it left. I love "Rainy Night In Georgia". And every time I hear it I think about this.

Why would this strike me so? Well, I grew up in an environment full of skewed theology, legalistic reasoning and a very strong us-versus-the-world ethos. As a result, I had very little tolerance for beliefs that I had been told were "wrong", and no love for the people who believed other than "we" did. The only kind of consideration "they" were given was when we preached to them to try to convert them. Beyond that, they were valueless, useless, disapproved by us, and therefore by God. The idea of stopping to think about how someone else felt or where their sorrow came from was very foreign to me.

What a change when I became a Christian! It took a while for the concept of a John 3:16 kind of love to sink in. A Romans 5:8 kind of love:

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

God doesn't wait for us to "get right" to love us. He stepped toward us first. With that as the bar to aim for, with Jesus' life as the example to model our lives after, it starts to feel very selfish if we keep viewing the rest of the world as extras in a story that is really all about Me.

Sometimes I pass someone in a grocery store, or see someone sitting at a red light near me, and I wonder, "What's her story? What has she cried about recently? Has she had her heart broken? Has she ever had her life touched by cancer? Do her kids call her? Does her husband pay attention to her? Does she pray?"

The longer I walk with Christ, the more these things occur to me. Jesus would see huge crowds at a time. But, He didn't just see a group to be talked at. Matthew tells us that...

"When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matt. 9:36)

He told a leper: I want to. I want to heal you.

Seeing people that we do not even know as also being God's children, not in some hazy "oh-yeah-I-guess-he-loves-everybody" sense, but in a very specific, very moving reality... well, I think that's a gift from God.

It is tough to do sometimes. I think sometimes we choose to ignore all those real people out there because it is heart-breaking to think of how sad this world can be.

But, God does not ignore it. He sees every bit of it. And He wants to do something about it. And He wants us to help.

Mike Tuttle, Technical Support Leader