What we do with our love will become the conversations we have with God.
I have a friend named Walter. After the government was overthrown in his country, he escaped from jail in a hail of bullets and fled to the United States for safety. Now Walter helps people resettle here after they’ve been forced from their homes in other countries. Many of them arrive at airports in the United States straight from United Nations refugee camps overseas. They step off the plane having experienced years of hunger and thirst, displacement, and fear. Confused. Scared. Lonely. They come as strangers to this new place. They don’t stop at baggage claim for luggage, because they have no clothes. Nor do they have any idea who they’ll meet, where they’ll live, or what they’ll do once they arrive. They’re easy to spot when they step off the plane, because most still have UN tags dangling from lanyards around their necks.
After getting off the plane, America’s newest guests walk awkwardly and tentatively toward the arrival terminal, busier people edging by them in the halls. Anxiety grows on their faces with each step. Then everything changes for them when they see Walter standing at the gate with his huge smile and his arms stretched wide, reaching out toward them. Walter welcomes these beautiful people to their new lives. He treats them as if they were Jesus Himself—because Walter knows Jesus, and Jesus said the way Walter treats these people is the way he’s treating Him.
Walter let me come along with him to the airport to greet some arriving refugees. I didn’t know what to bring with me, so I brought a dozen helium balloons. Balloons are my go-to for everything when I don’t know what to bring. I take them to birthday parties, job interviews, dentist appointments, bar exams, to the gym—everywhere except scuba diving. Balloons are an internationally understood code for celebration, joy, welcome, acceptance, and love.
I think heaven might be a little like the greeting Walter gives to the refugees he meets at the airport. A celebration, a homecoming. None of us will need any luggage either. (I’m expecting plenty of balloons when I get there; I can’t lie.) From what I’ve read, we’ll get a chance to meet Jesus and we’ll have a discussion with Him. It’s not the kind of discussion someone has when they get sent to the principal at school. It will be more of an uncovering, a revealing of what we didn’t understand during our lives. For most of us, I bet it will involve a tremendous unlearning of many of the things we thought we were certain of.
Jesus referred to two groups. He called them sheep and goats when He talked about the discussion we’ll have with Him, but He meant you and me. He said we’ll talk about how we treated the people we came across during our lives and whether we treated them as if they were Him. These are people like the ones Walter greets at the airport—the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers. People who are sick or don’t have clothes. People under bridges and in jail cells. Jesus told His friends we’ll all hear about the times when we saw Him during our lives but didn’t recognize Him and the couple of times we did.
I’ve got a long list of questions I want to talk to God about when we meet. For instance, I’d like to know how God decided where to put the waterfalls in Yosemite. Have you seen them? They’re huge and majestic. And I want to know about Half Dome too—where’s the other half? Sadly, it seems none of the questions on my list are the things Jesus will want to discuss with me. Jesus won’t want to talk about our elections or impeachments, who got the rose from a bachelor, or who got the boot from a boss. What it seems He’ll care about most is how we treated the people on the fringes of our lives. He’ll want to talk about whether we gave them a hug or some much-needed help. All of this because He said if we did kind things for the lonely and hurting and isolated in the world we were really doing it for Him.
I can hear how the discussion with the first group who did the right things but didn’t know it was Jesus might go down.
“Wait. Really? That was you? No way! The guy with all the tattooed cuss words? The hooker? That guy in jail? The kid in Uganda? The lawyer? The schoolteacher? The politician?” “We didn’t know it was You. We just decided we’d love people the way You said to.”
The second group will be just as surprised by what they hear Jesus say. This group didn’t intend to be mean or uncaring. They are a lot like you and me in this way. I’m sure they would have been more than willing to help Jesus if He’d asked them, but when the hungry or thirsty or sick or strange people came along, or when people without clothes came by, they didn’t know what to do, so they didn’t do anything.
It wasn’t that they disagreed with Jesus or folded their arms and refused to help. Their mistake was simple. In fact, it’s the one I make almost every day; they just didn’t recognize these people were actually Jesus. These people didn’t dress like Him or talk like Him or act like Him. In fact, the opposite was true. They lived in a way and did things that were quite opposite of how Jesus lived. Some of the things they did landed them in jail or left them in perilous positions. Jesus knew this, and He said if we wanted to be with Him, we’d stop playing it safe and go talk to them instead of talking about them.
I’ve lived most of my life as a second-group guy. I have simply been too busy and too good at keeping my distance from people I don’t understand to know what they really needed. Sure, I noticed them, but I just wasn’t close enough to recognize it wasn’t just hurting, lonely people I was passing by—it was Jesus I was avoiding. Sadly, sometimes I only pretend to care for people who are hurting. The way I know this is simple—I don’t do anything to help them. I’ll say I am too busy to help someone in need when it isn’t time I lack; it’s compassion. In short, I settle for merely hoping rather than actually helping.
We all know people like Walter. People who seem to have all the time in the world for other people. The reason is simple. Walter thinks every needy person he meets is Jesus. People who are becoming love make this look easy.
As a father, I know if someone wants to do something nice for me, they do it for my kids. Good fathers are like that. When someone does something terrific for my kids, they don’t even need to tell me. Fathers always seem to find out. Mothers know before it even happens. I bet that’s how God feels too. Jesus said when we give away love freely to one another and meet the needs of poor and needy and isolated and hurting people, we’re actually doing it for Him. Even when we don’t know we are. He said if we wanted to do something nice for God, we’d do it for His kids. And we don’t need to make a big deal out of it either. He’ll find out. Good Fathers do.
I’ve met a lot of people who say they’re waiting for God to give them a “plan” for their lives. They talk about this “plan” like it’s a treasure map God has folded up in His back pocket. Only pirates have those. People who want a reason to delay often wait for plans. People who are becoming love don’t. It’s almost as if Jesus knew we’d invent excuses under the guise of waiting for His “plan,” so He made it simple for us. He said His plan for all of us was to love Him and then find people who are hungry or thirsty or who feel like strangers or are sick or don’t have clothes or are in prison or creep us out or are our enemies and go love them just like they were Him.
Game. Set. Match. We can stop looking for another plan— that’s it.
Instead of just agreeing with Jesus, I started looking around my life for the kind of people Jesus said we’d be talking about when we finally meet Him on the other side of heaven’s threshold. I was kind of hoping I could find just one guy who was hungry and thirsty and sick and strange and naked and in jail. This way I could get it all done at once. It doesn’t work that way, though. I’ve found out it’s everybody. It’s all of us, in one way or another. It’s me. It’s you. It’s the person next to you at the coffee shop right now. I know it’s hard to believe, but they’re Jesus—even the ones who look and act so differently than He did.
Don’t make this more complicated than it is. Just start. Go find someone who is hungry right now and do something about it. I’ve heard lots of people say that giving the poor a fishing pole is better than giving them a meal, but I don’t see them giving away many fish or poles.
We have a fast-food place called In-N-Out Burger near our home. I’ll buy twenty burgers and then drive around town and ask people I meet if they’re hungry. If they are, I hook them up with a hamburger. I don’t write little messages on the wrapper like “Jesus loves you . . .” If you’ve ever had a Double-Double burger, you know He loves you!
Find strange people and welcome them into your life. You may have a whole family full of them already; no one will even notice. Keep water bottles in your car and find thirsty people. Go to a hospital and find sick people and give away love and Band-Aids and maybe one of your kidneys. Naked people are a little harder to find, but we have a nude beach not far away. I stand at the top of the cliff and throw socks over the edge. Here’s the point: Don’t just agree with Jesus. Go visit jails and make a couple of friends there. You don’t even need to commit a felony to get in. Just ask the warden.
Do these things and you’ll not only find your faith again; you’ll find Jesus. Even better, you’ll have plenty of things to talk to Him about for eternity in heaven. That’s the plan.