Do you care – really?

This question has been rattling around my brain a lot over the past few months: “do you care – really?” As a believer, pastor and all around good guy [ :0) ] the answer in my mind has always been “of course I care!!”  But do I?  How does it show?  When I was serving at a church I would have said it showed in the hours I put in “for the people”.  It was the nights away from my family “for the ministry”. It was the participation in church ministry that was “making a great impact”. 

I think that was the easy way to care.  It was part of my job.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved the people & the church I was serving at, and I did (and do!) care about them.  But really, caring for them was quite convenient.  Even easy in many ways.  I was expected to care for them.  And it was always others who needed the caring, not me or my family.

Then it all got turned upside down.  Suddenly we were on the other side of the fence, no longer a part of the church or community that I “cared for”.  Suddenly we were the ones who needed some care.  What I found was that, for the most part, not too many people were there!  Not a single person from church leadership ever called to see if we were ok.  Very few of the people I “cared for” at the church contacted us.  A couple of my former staff and many of our long-time & close friends cared for us wonderfully and we are so appreciative of that. We are incredibly blessed and doing great, so this is not to highlight those who didn’t offer care, but rather to highlight the fact that the care I offered was sometimes all too convenient to give…and when it wasn’t convenient, it often wasn’t offered.

So what was this all about? I believe that it’s simply indicative of how many of us often care about others.  We care when it’s convenient.  We participate in a big church program to care for others.  We care for those in our immediate ministry. We write a check and send it off.  We care when it’s relatively easy, and safe.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with offering care in this manner .  Time and resources are very real limiting factors and, again, I admit that I have pretty much had that pattern in my own life and ministry. 

But I don’t want to care that way anymore. 

I want to call the friend – or the one I don’t know that well – who’s having a rough time.  I will risk having to give up time and resources to help them. 

I want to walk toward the homeless person who hangs out at Starbucks looking for a handout instead of away from them.  I will risk the dollar or handful of change being spent on liquor instead of food and maybe I’ll even risk having a conversation with them.

I want to put myself in position to be uncomfortable with someone who’s hurting.  I will risk not knowing what to say or not being able to really do anything for them. 

I want to reach out to the person who seemingly has been shunned by others.  I will risk finding out details that I might not want to know in order to care for them – or perhaps I will find that what I heard or assumed wasn’t true at all!

I want to care for those I know who need it, even if they don’t fall under “my responsibility”.  I will risk caring too much, just in case others don’t care enough.

In short, I want to be better at caring – really caring.  As I look through the Gospels, that’s what I find with the way Jesus cared.  I’ve always known that, but it’s more real to me now than ever before.  He cared – really cared – for whoever He came across, regardless of the circumstances or what others thought. 

I have much to learn about really caring, but with Thanksgiving this week and Christmas to follow, perhaps it is a good time for me to start learning how to care better. 

How about you?  Do you care – really?