Being a refugee is to live on the run.
Being a refugee is raw vulnerability to smugglers, unscrupulous employers and landlords, and even human traffickers—people who prowl around, eager to take advantage of the defenseless. It is to be exposed to unmitigated evil.
Being a refugee is having no voice, no control over your life—or your children’s— and no respite from a raging storm.
It’s wondering when, or if, you will ever be able to re-start your life, or make plans for your future.
It’s often wondering where your next meal will come from.
Being a refugee is an experience hard for most of us to imagine, but we should still try.
Why? Because there, but for the grace of God, go we.
As Afghans who have been set to flight have recounted their stories to me, they tell of…
- Losing a child to kidnapping and murder…
- Fleeing danger on foot, sleeping out in the open, exposed to the elements…
- Having a lifetime of savings stolen in a single moment…
- Losing a house to a rocket or leaving a home behind and finding out later someone has squatted in it…
- Living in a refugee camp made of tents where water-born disease sweeps through, killing a large number of people, being terrified that it would take their own husband or child…
- Being helpless to prevent a scorpion from stinging a tiny daughter as she sleeps on the ground…
- Losing a two-year old on a grueling trek from Pakistan back to Afghanistan (as a returning refugee)…
- Being forcibly separated from family members by the laws of the countries (or the whims or bureaucrats) where they have sought refuge…
- Living as second-class citizens—or not as citizens at all—with no hope of ever having that status…
- Being underpaid, cheated of wages, or simply not paid for work done…
- Having no recourse for injustices committed against them…
- Children unable to attend school because they are on the move or can’t afford the school fees imposed on immigrants…
- Being yelled at by nationals, “Go back home,” but having no home to go back to.
These refugees’ experiences are hard to wrap my head around.
Thankfully, God has given me the smallest taste of the kind of suffering of refugees’ experience, enough to make me care about theirs.
Sometimes, experiencing refugees’ suffering is what it takes to move us beyond the maelstrom of politics surrounding them, to make us recognize their humanity, understand their plight at a heart-level, and move us to action on their behalf.
For the more tender-hearted, even knowing a single refugee family, drawing close to see firsthand what they suffer and have suffered, is enough to be moved to help them in practical ways.
Why should we care for refugees?
“And if a stranger [foreigner, alien, sojourner*] dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat [rage or be violent, destroy, thrust out by oppression*] him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you [home-born*] and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34 (NKJV)
- God loves the stranger—the immigrant, the refugee, the foreigner.
- In this passage, God is appealing to the experience of His people as strangers in a foreign land—they should treat strangers in their own land well because they have empathy born by their experience of being strangers themselves. Though, we were not necessarily strangers in Egypt, we were once strangers from God, who has made us citizens of His own Kingdom. He had brought us near.
- The Lord is our God.
- Jesus himself was a refugee.
“The stranger….you shall love him as yourself.” (Lev. 19:34)
Sound familiar? When I read that passage again today, it brought to mind another:
“…Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40.
As Christians, whatever our thoughts on borders and immigration policy, we are still to love the strangers among us—because God does.
The danger of refugee politics is much worse than polarization; it’s cauterization—of our own hearts.
My challenge is to everyone—whatever your political views—to ask God to make your path cross with a refugee or refugee family so that you might bless them. It’s that simple. I believe God will honor that sincere prayer because He loves strangers.
- If you’re already engaged with refugees, what has the experience opened your eyes to?
- If you prayed the prayer above, how has God answered it?
* Strong’s concordance
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