Character Confession: We Forgot We’re Dust
I’m the girl that likes to ask questions. I rarely do out loud anymore because I’ve learned through the years my asking isn’t a popular thing. One of my standout memories was asking a poor 6th grade Sunday School teacher who didn’t read the Bible at the time to please explain the Virgin Birth. He stammered for a few minutes and said, “You know, you ask too many questions.”
So, God gets my questions. I don’t always get answers, and slowly I’m coming to terms that I’m not meant to know the mind of God just yet.
But I keep asking.
The question lately is why. Why do people hurt others? Where is compassion? Between current events and what I experience with my own two eyes, I don’t understand. And yet as I sift through the confusion I realize I stand on the edge of committing the same kind of wounds.
This week in my quiet time I asked why. I feel confident it is a Holy Spirit answer when it comes back to me many times and I get what I call the burn in my belly.
I asked why do people wound people? Why do they treat others with such little regard? Why is there no compassion?
The answer?
We forget we’re made of dust.
Wow.
I know one of the prayers I’m always lifting up is against self-entitlement. There are generations who believe because of their age, adversity, past, and even because of injustice, they are owed something. Then there are those who climbed the ladder. They worked hard, I understand. But somewhere along the line, they forgot the “little people.” They would rather correct you on getting the right title for their position than hear you were sharing a need. How about athletes and entertainers? I’ve read those articles about the riders on contracts demanding coconut water from Australia. Take out the red M&M’s. We are a selfish lot and the world we live in reeks of our offering.
You can recognize those who remember they are dust. They are the stories about athletes who stop a race to pick up a fallen competitor. A widow who pays for someone’s education out of her entire life savings from her blue collar job. A student who proclaims their vacation will be overseas ministering to a leper colony in Africa. If they have ten degrees to their name and we forget to call them by their title, they don’t stop and insist you call them Dr., even though they are still paying off that education.
Mother Theresa is a great example of someone who knew what she was made of. I often think she was so different than me, I could never be like her. Maybe my call is different, but we have the same foundation. Created from dust. Living in Christ’s image.
And trying to be an example that doesn’t force others to look at me and ask where’s the compassion, and why.
