Emergency Lights

A few days ago driving home from Carson I passed a truck on the side of the road that had it's emergency lights on.  Whenever this happens, I have to fight the urge to pull over and see if they need help.  That is, after all, the point of emergency lights.  They were installed for the purpose of alerting other drivers that you were in an emergent situation and needed help.  However, in today's society, they are more like a warning to stay away.  They mainly communicate "go around me" or "be careful not to hit me".  They rarely mean "please, someone, help".  In fact, off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you where the emergency light switch is in my car (and I'm sure I'm not alone).

Then, like I tend to do, I started thinking about the spiritual parallels.  You see, I am convinced that God gave all people their own emergency lights.  Things that change (whether in appearance or behavior) when we're having a hard time.  When we need help (we all do sometimes - even if we don't admit it).  When we desperately wish someone to pull over and lend a hand.  I'm also convinced that we're failing horribly.  People are falling apart all over the place.  The world is so full of metaphorical emergency lights that we don't even notice them anymore.  Worse than that, we've accepted them as normal.  We tend to write off people struggling to keep breathing.  We say "they need space" or "they don't like it when you hover" or "it's not my place" or "that's just how they cope". I'm calling B.S.

Jeremiah 6:14 MSG
My people are broken—shattered!—
and they put on band-aids,
Saying, ‘It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.’
But things are not ‘just fine’!

People were made to LOVE!  We were created in the image of a God who is love.  How is ignoring the suffering around us loving people?  Yet we continue 'going around' people.  Why do we do that?  I keep coming back to a teaching by Josh Riebock I heard over the summer.  He was talking about the Good Samaritan of Luke.  Josh explained that when the Samaritan stopped to help the battered man, he probably had to bend down to pick him up, which means he likely ended up covered in the man's blood.  He wasn't afraid to get the other guys 'stuff' on him.  So why are we?  Why don't we, as Josh would say, 'run to the mess'?  And why, once someone has given us entry into their life, are we unwilling to just say, "Hey, that's the edge of a cliff you're running toward.  How about turning around?"

Confession: when I see someone whose life is falling apart, my first reaction is to hug them/reach out to them/see if I can help.  But my sinful second reaction is to run as fast as I can.  I have enough issues of my own, I don't want to add that person's problems to the pile.  I don't want to get dragged into their drama.  I don't want to get their 'stuff' on me.  Plus, if people see me with them, then they are going to think that I'm struggling with the same things they are, right?!  I'm ashamed of how often I allow the second impulse to overtake the first.  Perhaps daily.

So, my new mission: love people.  Not the way I would, but the way our Heavenly Father would: where they are, for who they are, but desiring to see them transformed into His likeness.  I'm not sure what this looks like yet, but I'm confident He will reveal it to me.  He is, after all, the one who put this fire within my heart.  He loves His people, and He wants me doing the same.  So I'm going to ask Him to show me how.

"Who You love I'll love,
how You serve I'll serve,
if this life I lose I will follow You"