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how it works

TITLE: Playing Favorites | Previous Challenge Entry
By Billy George
03/04/05
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We sure do face a lot of challenges in life. Funny thing is, a lot of them are human. The process may start at the morning table as we stare over a cup of decaf at someone who just doesn’t understand us. Or who possibly understands us much too well. We say our morning goodbyes to children who have no taste in dress or music and speak a language we can barely understand and make our way to work wondering why our kids couldn’t have turned out like the neighbors’ kids. Once at work we encounter a boss who’s out to get us and incompetent coworkers with no sense of humor, obviously, since they never laugh at our jokes. Come Sunday we go to church with people who obviously never read their Bibles and have no idea how to live a sanctified life before the Lord and listen to a preacher who makes us realize we could do a much better job of preaching than he does. Then it’s back home to the mate without understanding and the kids who defy it.

Christmas comes around. We’ll once again encounter the buxom aunt with too much lipstick who insists on giving us a smooch, and the old uncle who smells like liniment and liquor who drives the ragged out old convertible and loves the “pull my finger” joke. That annoying cousin will tell us about her disease du jour and, of course, our brother, the corporate attorney, will be there talking about his successes and dropping names of senators and superstars. We will somehow survive the season and return to our lives.

Our lives. Comfortable, safe havens shielded from anything different from ourselves. Sunday afternoons we visit carefully chosen friends who root for the same team. We have our cook outs and occasions with persons of like faith, who accept and reject the same ideas, who hold to the same standards. We exalt and support ourselves and one another while putting the “they’s” and “them’s” in their rightful places, somewhere just beneath us. There, in our little, sheltered worlds, we are safe. We are comfortable. We are in control, surrounded by our own kind, insensitive and unfeeling toward those on the outside of our bubble.

In Revelation 22:17 we read, “ And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (KJV)” Those “whosoever’s” include us. Not only us, but “them”; those who are different from our circle. Those of different colors, of different heritage, of different nationality, even those of different faiths. The “whosoever’s” are liberal or conservative, educated or ignorant, weak or strong, faithful or failing. They have their individual dress, their individual work ethic, their individual standards. They are nothing like us, yet they are God’s unique and wonderful creation and have equal access with us to His salvation and blessing. They are not excluded from John 3:16, even if everything we see says they should be, for when He so loved He loved them and us just the same.
I’m glad God doesn’t play favorites. I’m not at all sure I’d have been invited to the barbeque.

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