Who Cares?

Going to preface this quick blog by saying that I wrote most of it on my phone in my kitchen while doing dishes and feeding small children. #grace 

I was talking to a friend recently about caring for people. It's a shift for me to move from the mindset of leading people to caring for them. We talked about the qualifications of leaders and how it narrows down the list, just like someone being interviewed with others for a job. Must meet the criteria to get the position!! 

Unlike doctors and attorneys and teachers who need credentials, my friend and I talked about caring for people's hearts and how that really doesn't have a list of qualifications. It is what it is...you care or you don't care. Not a whole lot to it and yet it's what Jesus was saying all along, I think. If you love me...take care of the things I care about. 

Jesus told a story about a man who helped an enemy. This man practiced what Brene Brown says, "Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites." 

A man had been beaten up and left for dead. Many of the man's leaders had walked by - not caring, too many things they needed to get done or they worried they would lose position if they stopped to help. I personally have walked by many for these reason. I don't like my goals being blocked, thank you. 

But then an enemy stopped everything and made sure the beaten man would continue to be cared for after his leave at the local inn. Woah. For sure this enemy did not have the leadership qualifications the others who had walked by embraced. For sure they had the qualifications, but the enemy...he cared. In fact, he didn't just care like we sometimes do today as in sympathy or convictions or beliefs; he acted on his convictions.

I wonder if that's what Jesus was trying to say...trying to say to the religious leaders, stop trying to lead people and just care for them. "Who cares if it's the sabbath! This man needs to be healed...who here actually CARES?!!"

I really don't know if you believe the "right" things or not, but do you care for people? That's what I'm asking these days regarding loving other and that's what I wonder if Jesus meant too. Who cares? Really - not sarcastically. 

What's so interesting about people is this - if you care for them...they will follow you. You don't have to have a position or credentials - just care. Genuine, "I'm not going to get anything out of this...not respect, not results, not anything..." kind of care. Being a spirit being we spirit beings sense these things. Makes me sick to my stomach thinking back to all the times I emoted not caring.

What will trip you up about this is this. You can care and love and lay down your life for people and it won't be enough. Nope. Won't be enough. There's this God place inside each of us that only He can fill and He knows it too. He designed us to need Him. But He stills says to love your enemies, care for those who hurt you and pray for people who use you despitefully. And then there's all those who you DO love too. Lotttttts of caring to go on and go around. Will take more than your lifetime to do.

So why? Why care? If you're going to lay down your life for others and it's not enough anyway? Because He knows this, dear friend - the dying is more about you than it is about them. When He walks into the tombs in your life where parts of us have died He begins to unwrap the grave clothes - one layer at a time. If you're like me you want to help Him - kinda fast...I don't like the suffocating feelings of smelly cloth on me. But He is patient and He is kind and they won't all be off until we're standing before Him. Made new...like the sprout that pushes up through the soil in the spring and still has parts of the dead cocoon of a seed around its roots. 

THE PRESSURE IS OFF. Off to get your resume just right, your qualifications tidied up your skills set mastered before you can care for and help people. If you're willing to care - sometimes to the point of laying your life down too - that's all He asks. It's what He told the twelve who kept asking for positions, all they had to be willing to do was to discover what God cares about and care for that too. Just care...no matter who's watching and no matter if it's noticed and no matter if you die upside down on a cross like some did who asked Him that question face to face.

It's often dirty, tiring, thankless work caring for people. I know. I have six children. ;) They do grow up and start to thank you, mommas...hold on. ;)  And I'm a person too who has been so beautifully cared for and it wasn't enough. But we shouldn't care for people for our gain or for theirs. I don't care for refugees because I want to be a hero. I don't ask folks to come gather around my table to lead them - I just want to care for them because He cares for them. I've fallen in love with Him and it's intoxicating.

I don't do it well or beautifully and my grave clothes make this slow work on the best days. But I do know this, He promises to complete what He started in me. He promises that He'll take the little, messy bits of care I can give and multiply it - straight up. 

So, here's to glasses raised to caring ~ to laying it down day after day because you love what the Lover of your life loves. #God #people It's not easy, no sir; but it's not complicated either. #freedom!