Patience week4

 Do not oppress an alien, you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.     Exodus 23.9

We were all at one time strangers to God. We all once needed someone to save us. But now we are rescued and called by the Saviour to go and rescue others. To be effective in our callings, we must not forget what it felt like to be an alien, a stranger. It has long been noted that those who have most recently come to Christ are the most motivated to try to win others. Why? Probably because those newest in their salvation still remember what it was like to be lost.

Most of those who exclude others from their social circles have never lived as an outcast. Cherish the times you have been lonely, for such experiences have been your teachers. Their lessons were painful, but they have left you more human. When you had hurt enough, you knew you would never want one other person to have to endure what you had been through. 

Here in Exodus Moses counsels the Israelites to remember that for 400 years they have been exiles and foreigners in Egypt. Surely their four century period of bondage has softened their hearts toward the strangers in their midst. If they will remember how they lived before God rescued them in the exodus, surely they can feel compassion for all of those still living beyond the community of God. 

Small wonder E. A. Robinson wrote, 

He drew a circle that shut me out, 

A rebel, heretic, thing to flout, 

But love and I had the wit to win 

We drew a circle that shut him in. 

As Christians, it is our job to ‘shut in’ those around us. When we understand that hard times are our teachers, and we bear those times with patience, we can pass along that understanding to others. We can bring others into our world and close around them the arms of love and peace that we also have experienced.