Learning to Love our Neighbors
20/07/2011 9:00 am <>
A few months ago we moved from Taichung City to the working class district of Taiping. We were told that our first and most important task was to get to know our neighbors. In doing so we have discovered some challenges in loving them as we ought.
Firstly, the lives of several of our neighbors here are complicated by various relational, social and spiritual issues. Lily is one whom God has led to the Taiping Prayer Center. She lives with mother, younger sister and son in our apartment complex. Her parents separated when she was very young after her father tried to shoot her mother. Lily became a rebellious teenager. At age 15, seeking for a sense of belonging, she ran away from home to join a gang. She then fell pregnant to her boyfriend’s best friend who wanted no responsibility for the child. Her peers told her that she was stupid for not wanting an abortion. Feeling scared and helpless, she decided to return home. She is now 17 with a 9 months old son. They both have been coming regularly to our mums and babies’ group on Wednesday mornings. She is keen to learn more about the loving God who is the Father of the fatherless. However, Lily will do anything it takes to cling onto anyone who befriends her. She habitually makes up stories to gain acceptance and love. Please pray that we will love her by pointing her to the God who will satisfy her desire for belonging and acceptance. Pray that she will learn to cling onto God as her Savior, Comforter and Friend.
The second challenge is we are limited in our physical and emotional energy. We get annoyed with and feel drained after multiple unexpected rings on the doorbell asking for time, help or things. As we shared our frustrations with more experienced missionaries we discovered that this is very common. One missionary family needed to move house so that their family had some privacy from local friends and neighbors who would frequently drop-in. Others at times have felt emotionally drained and hurt. Please pray that we will acknowledge our limitations and that we can communicate realistic expectations in our friendships with our neighbors, so that we might have the emotional endurance to love them for the long term.
Loving the people whose backgrounds are different from ours, and whom we find emotionally draining is not natural for us. We need supernatural love. We need the Holy Spirit to be producing fruit in us, especially the fruit of love and patience (Gal 5:22). We also need both to be reminded, and remind ourselves, of God’s love for us. God does not love us because we are nice people. Rather, it was while we still sinners that God sent his Son to die for us. Thank God for his love. Please pray that all missionaries working here in Taiwan will shine God’s love into the troubled lives of Taiwan’s working class people.
Steve & Susanna Gribble – Taiping
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