After ten years away, Emma is welcomed home by our neighbor Tonhetta. Some people make you feel seen before a single word is spoken.
<!–
–>
Learning to See
“Examine me, Lord, and put me to the test; refine my mind and my heart.” — Psalm 26:2
When Emma was fourteen, a friend suddenly turned against her.
One day they were fine.
Then, without warning, he began scorning her, pushing her away, and treating her as if she had done something wrong.
Emma searched her own heart.
Had she said something?
Had she failed him somehow?
Had she missed something obvious?
It was confusing and painful, especially because they were also involved in worship together. The rejection did not stay outside the church doors. It followed her into the place where people were supposed to be learning how to love one another.
Later, Emma discovered that the real battle was not between her and her friend.
The real battle was happening inside his home.
He was carrying fears, pressures, and family struggles no fourteen-year-old should have to carry. His reactions toward Emma were not really about Emma.
They were the overflow of a burden she could not see.
That realization did not make his behavior right.
But it changed how she saw him.
Most of us see behavior.
God sees burdens.
The Kingdom often begins when we stop asking, “What’s wrong with them?” and start asking, “What might they be carrying?”
Most of us see reactions.
God sees wounds.
Most of us see the fruit.
God sees the roots.
And one of the first signs of spiritual maturity is learning to ask, “Lord, what am I not seeing?”
<!–
–>
David’s Dangerous Prayer
Psalm 26 begins with a prayer many of us would hesitate to pray:
“Examine me, Lord, and put me to the test; refine my mind and my heart.”
David does not begin by asking God to examine his enemies.
He does not say, “Lord, show them where they are wrong.”
He says, “Examine me.”
That is a dangerous prayer.
It is also a freeing one.
David is not claiming to be perfect. The Bible never presents David that way. He is claiming allegiance. He is saying, “Lord, I want my heart to belong to You. I want my mind shaped by You. I want my steps directed by Your truth.”
That is why he can say:
“For Your goodness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth.”
Before David talks about the crowd, he brings his own heart before God.
That matters.
Because it is very easy to notice what is wrong with everyone else.
It is harder to stand before God and say, “Start with me.”
<!–
–>
Conversations like these often become the starting point for future church planters and mission leaders.
<!–
–>
The People We Walk Past
Matt learned something similar after returning from a mission trip to Haiti.
In Haiti, he and his team worked among people living in deep poverty. They saw need up close. They served, prayed, helped, listened, and loved.
Then Matt came back to Vancouver.
He looked out the window and saw a homeless man on the street.
Suddenly, something shifted.
The man reminded him of the poor he had seen in Haiti. But this time he was not far away in another country. He was right there, in Matt’s own city.
Matt realized that he had learned to see poverty overseas while filtering it out at home.
That kind of realization can shake a person.
The poor had not suddenly appeared in Vancouver.
Matt’s eyes had changed.
The poor had always been there. Compassion had not arrived in Vancouver. Compassion had arrived in Matt.
Sometimes the greatest culture shock is not leaving home.
Sometimes it is coming back and realizing what we no longer have permission to ignore.
<!–
–>
Jesus and the Beatitudes
When Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount, He does not start by giving His followers a strategy for taking over the world.
He describes a kind of person.
Poor in spirit.
Merciful.
Pure in heart.
Hungry and thirsty for righteousness.
Peacemakers.
Willing to suffer for what is right.
Then He says:
“You are the salt of the earth.”
“You are the light of the world.”
Salt and light are not impressive from a distance.
Salt does not transform food by announcing itself. Light does not transform darkness by arguing with it. Both change their surroundings simply by being present.
Jesus is describing people who live close to God and close to others at the same time.
People who do not withdraw when they are hurt, or from a hurting world.
People who do not simply blend into it either.
People who are learning to see what God sees.
Matt played drums with the worship team at church.
<!–
–>
With Them, But Not Like Them
David says in Psalm 26 that he does not sit with the deceitful or join himself to hypocrisy and violence.
But David was no stranger to broken people.
At one point in his life, he led a band of distressed, indebted, and discontented men.
He lived among them.
He served them.
He shaped them.
Many of them became mighty leaders.
He was with them. But he did not become like them.
That is the holy tension.
God does not call us to stand over people.
He calls us to stand with Him among people.
There is a difference between holiness and superiority.
Holiness moves toward people with mercy.
Superiority pulls away with judgment.
Holiness says, “Lord, examine me, and help me love them well.” Superiority says, “Lord, examine them, and prove that I was right.”
The Beatitudes leave no room for that kind of pride.
The poor in spirit know they need mercy too.
The merciful know they have received mercy first.
The pure in heart are not people who have never struggled.
They are people whose deepest desire is becoming clear. They want God.
<!–
–>
What Church Planting Is Really About
This is one reason we care so deeply about church planting.
The greatest miracle of church planting is not a new church. It is a new kind of person.
People who notice the poor.
People who make peace.
People who stay tender in hard places.
People who can be mistreated without becoming bitter.
People who can see beyond someone’s behavior and ask, “What burden might they be carrying?”
People who pray David’s prayer and mean it:
“Examine me, Lord. Refine my mind and my heart.”
A healthy local church becomes a training ground for this kind of life.
It is where people learn to worship, forgive, listen, serve, confess, reconcile, and discern the voice of God.
Then they carry that life into their homes, schools, workplaces, streets, and neighborhoods.
That is how salt works.
That is how light spreads.
One changed person begins to see differently.
One family begins to love differently.
One church begins to serve differently.
And slowly, quietly, the atmosphere of a community begins to change.
<!–
–>
Standing on Level Ground
Psalm 26 ends with a beautiful line:
“My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.”
David does not end isolated.
He does not end bitter.
He does not end standing above everyone else.
He ends standing securely before God and worshiping among God’s people.
That is the goal.
Not simply to be different.
Not to win arguments.
Not to prove ourselves more faithful than the crowd.
The goal is to become the kind of people who can stand on level ground because our hearts are being shaped by God.
Emma began learning this when she was fourteen.
Matt became more aware of it when he came home from Haiti and saw Vancouver with new eyes.
And perhaps we are all still learning it.
The person who irritates us may be carrying something we cannot see.
The person we walk past may be someone God is inviting us to notice.
The community we call “broken” may be the very place God is asking us to become salt and light.
So maybe Psalm 26 gives us the prayer we need this week:
Lord, examine me.
Not first my neighbor.
Not first my culture.
Not first the people I find difficult.
Me.
Refine my mind.
Refine my heart.
Teach me to see what You see
… because when God changes the way we see people, He begins changing the world through us.
<!–
–>
Things Emma and Matt Love About Brazil
Tambaqui for Lunch
Free Range Chicken Feast
Wild Iguanas
<!–
–>
A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Give us eyes to see what You see.
Examine us before we examine others.
Refine our hearts before we try to correct the world.
Make us poor in spirit, merciful, pure in heart, and hungry for righteousness.
Teach us to move toward people with compassion without losing our way.
Help us notice the burdens behind the behavior,
the wounds behind the reactions,
and the people we have learned to walk past.
Form our churches into communities of salt and light.
And wherever You have planted us, May our lives leave that place more full Of Your mercy, truth, and presence Than we found it.
