"How do we see others—and how do we treat them? That's the shape of love in our lives.
The Bible has a lot to say about how we are to see and care for others, especially the most vulnerable. God has a special concern for those with the least access to resources in our communities.
The prophets and Jesus talk a lot about our care for 'widows, orphans, immigrants,' for the poor.
This Lent, I am asking God to help us all to see one another through God’s eyes, through an all-embracing love and to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.
No one is a stranger to God."
No One Is a Stranger to God
by Camille Hyatt
"I was a stranger,
and you welcomed me.”
MATTHEW 25:35
This Lent, one of my devotional practices has been to read meditations on God’s love daily. In one of them, someone shares an insight that she had while traveling. She writes,
“I had been reflecting on God’s eternal love for all of humanity. As we waited for everyone to deplane, I saw each person as totally and unconditionally loved by God. Of course, they were all strangers to me, but not to God.”
That struck me: they were all strangers to me, but not to God. No one is a stranger to God.
We realize intellectually that God “knows” us, of course. But this writer reminds us that the God who knows us is the same God who loves each and every one of us.
I began to think, how do we see others around us, even those we imagine we know well? Do we know them with that same kind of all-embracing love?
Even more profoundly, how do we see other human beings we don’t know—how do we view those whom we might consider to be strangers in our midst?
Can we love in that same deep way like God does all of us?
Can we love the stranger? Can we love someone who is from a different country, a different faith or no faith, a different political party—someone who doesn’t think the same way we do?
Do we love our neighbor as ourselves? And do we even think about loving our enemies?
We must learn to see others for who they truly are—as beloved human beings created in God’s good image, as children of God.
Several years ago, my husband, Chad, spent some time with a group of Catholic religious brothers in Jamaica, the Missionaries of the Poor.
He learned about their spirituality, based on Matthew 25’s call to care for the most vulnerable in our midst—the “least of these”—in the same way that we would care for Jesus.
This way of life taught them to look at everyone as they would look at Jesus.
How do we see others—and how do we treat them? That’s the shape of love in our lives.
The Bible has a lot to say about how we are to see and care for others, especially the most vulnerable. God has a special concern for those with the least access to resources in our communities.
The prophets and Jesus talk a lot about our care for “widows, orphans, immigrants,” for the poor.
This Lent, I am asking God to help us all to see one another through God’s eyes, through an all-embracing love and to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.
No one is a stranger to God.
