Seen

My blog this week is another devotional my wife did for our church:

“When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  -Matthew 9:36

“But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  -Luke 18:16-17

When my kids were small, I taught them not to stare at people. I thought I was teaching them to be socially aware and, in some ways, I was. However, lately I’ve been thinking about how this morphs in our understanding as we get older and can actually make us less like Jesus if we’re not careful.

I recently heard that children ask about 250 questions a day, whereas adults ask only about 20 questions a day. You see, kids are new to “the whole thing” and have a lot of questions. I believe we can agree that young children often stare at people that are foreign to them in order to try to understand their world. They see something different and their gaze lingers a little longer to try to make sense of it. This can be uncomfortable, both for the parent and for the person who is being observed. But—before a certain age—the child isn’t judging what they see, but simply trying to make sense of it. They’re trying to understand the person within the context of the world they’re getting to know.

Maybe you can see where I’m going with this: Sometimes, as adults, it might be good to purposefully look at the people around us—especially those who are different than us—both to try to understand them and, in doing so, to make them part of “our world,” instead of someone with whom we should avoid eye contact. And maybe we can try to ask more questions and cultivate a heart of curiosity, rather than judgment.

The thing is, Jesus loves every other person on earth just as much as He loves you. Every person has inherent worth simply because they are made in the image of God. And, if we’re going to be like Jesus, we are going to engage people who are different from us: people who might make us uncomfortable; people who might have different beliefs, values, and morals. We cannot lose sight of the fact that Jesus purposefully and regularly engaged and made eye contact with people who we might easily avoid.

I’m certainly not saying that we should start staring at people who are different than us. But maybe we can make an effort to make eye contact with others and engage those people that God allows to cross our path. My youth pastor said it this way, “Walk slowly through the crowd.” If we want to be like Jesus, we have to see people, have compassion for them, and then engage them.