Love your neighbour as yourself

“Love your neighbour as yourself and learn a different way of seeing the world.” Tim Mackie, The Bible Project.

Greetings from Rwanda. Over the last 25 years, I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work alongside many people of other cultures to achieve a common goal to see the kingdom of God and his righteousness established.

It is a privilege to go to new places and be exposed to different ways of doing things, and to experience the way other people see the world, to hear their life experiences, and try to understand how their world shapes their experience of God.  To be a stranger in a strange land is a difficult, but good experience.

Every country and culture I experience shocks me and shapes me in different ways.  Sometimes those shocks are from bad things. But more often those shocks are me experiencing things that I had never thought of before. And so, I am shaped spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically.

Regretfully, I sometimes hear negative words out of the mouths of Christian brothers and sisters who either see other cultures or languages as a threat. It grieves me, and I know it grieves the Spirit of Christ.   We are called to love our brothers and sisters everywhere, and especially those that come among us.  We are called to be like Jesus and to humble ourselves and try to become like others to experience their world, and to learn from them, before we ever try to fix stuff. We need them. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the New Zealand way, or the American way or even the Rwandan way is not the best way. The Jesus way certainly is though!

So, let’s love our neighbour as ourselves and learn a different way of seeing the world. We won’t regret it.

Adam