Written in Iron Ink: Love the Sojourner

We live in a world that bats around the term “refugee crisis.”

Actually, we batted that around a few months ago and now we’ve moved on to something different.

That’s how we roll.

But what about all the refugees? What about the people whose lives are turned upside down by war, government mandates, religious persecution, violence, disaster, and all of the other unimaginables that my mind can’t quite grasp in my comfortable home in Nebraska?

God’s Word is clear about two matters that we address in this podcast with special guest, missionary Kim Bueltmann:

First, there are those whom God puts in our path that are in need of refuge.

Deuteronomy 10:19 invites us further up and further in to the matter:

 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 

We ourselves are sojourners on this earth. Everything we have, we borrow. What a remarkable thing that God allows us to share what isn’t ours to begin with! As Kim points out, God, as always, brings beauty and light, where Satan would try to only bring destruction. The refugee crisis is no exception.

Second, God invites us in.

Kim reminds us that He is gladly yes, our Rock, our Redeemer, but also our Refuge.

He has also been there. As we round the corner to celebrate the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons, we remember all that we have been given and mostly a God who deigns to come to us, as a sojourner, a refugee, a baby in need of a pillow, the Son of God in need of a place to rest his head.

I could make this more complicated. I could give infinite reasons to care for refugees and to reach out our hands in love and in relationship to those who are immigrants, strangers in a scary foreign land, but I won’t. I’ll leave it at God’s Word of Hope:

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

We aren’t left to our own devices to love.

He is God of gods, Lord of lords, great, mighty, and awesome. Let’s see what He can do, in Germany and beyond.