Playing for the Children

October 23, 2009 - Aqaba, Jordan
Have you ever noticed how your up-bringing determines to a great extent your reactions and behavior to your environment?
I grew up in Florida, while the state was still considered a part of the south and de-segregation was only a hotly debated topic of discussion. My up-bringing did not prepare me to live in a racially diverse community in Florida or California or anywhere else for that matter. Because I was a product of my up-bringing I had never considered myself to be racist. Then, in my marriage we moved to a racially diverse community and my eyes were open. I saw, in all its ugliness, my deeply hidden prejudices and fears. But Abba put me there to teach me that we are ALL His children. When He empowers you to be able to look past a person's race then you can truly begin to "see" them.
So spending this time in Jordan has been an interesting experience for me. I see children playing ball with their friends in the streets, (we did that as children too, not until 11:00 P.M. though!), I see mothers pushing baby strollers and fathers carrying little ones, crying children in grocery stores when expectations are not met, the firm voice of discipline as well as the giving-in so as to forestall a "scene", families out for an evening stroll or having a picnic at the beach, it's typical life of any town America. Once again The Father is punching a hole in the wall of my up-bringing and saying to me, we are ALL His children. We smile, we laugh, we cry, we say Hello, we eat, we drink, we love, we sleep.
"Open your eyes and "see" my children as I see them."

We visited a school for mentally handicapped children a few days ago. The teachers make less than $200 a month, but their love and dedication to these dear ones is evident. With great care and tenderness they direct and teach and wipe noses and console.

Steve played his harp for all the kids and the children were especially delighted when he allowed them to strum the strings. One deaf girl's face lit up when he brought the harp over to her table and she felt the vibrations of his playing. One little boy watched Steve so intently that when he was allowed to strum the strings he placed his fingers and plucked the strings just as he had seen Steve doing.

A teacher was talking to me in her broken English about the Jordanian people, how they are different from the others and I agreed with her that the Jordanian people were a very kind, gentle people indeed. She looked at me and then grabbed me in a big hug and kissed my cheek, she was so overcome. So was I for that matter! - (Muslim women, like Orthodox Jewish women, will (outside of their family), only have physical contact with another woman, i.e. the shaking of hands.)

I suppose I am "harping" a little on this, but we must allow the Spirit to punch holes in the walls of our up-bringing and bring down our racisms so that we can love like our Father loves and be springs of living water to a dry and thristy land. Did Y'Shua meet with any less resistance when He walked this land 2,000 years ago? But it was His love and acceptance that we are ALL God's children that caused the world to be changed and we to be changed into His likeness. Can we afford to be anything less?
Love in the face of adversity, weep in intercession over the sins of the world, pray for the peace of Yah's presence and the world will know that Y'Shua has walked in their midst in the form of you! They may not like us, they may even persecute us - for as they did to Y'Shua they will do to us - but if we live as Y'Shua lived it will not be said of us when the sheep are separated from the goats, "I never knew you."