Through my friendship with these families, I have a profoundly different picture of the faithfulness of God. When I don't know what is around the corner, God brings their faces and stories to my mind. When my view of God begins to shrink, the Holy Spirit brings back conversations and lessons I've learned from my friends. When I struggle with fear for my children's future, I see the children of my refugee friends and I am reminded that the the Lord is the God of history, peoples, and nations. When my prayer life begins to stagnate, I spend time with them and my faith is warmed again with an understanding that God does indeed hear the deepest cries of our hearts.
The refugees we encounter today look different than most of us. They come from cultures we can't begin to fully appreciate. But beneath all of that, they are simply human beings trying to find a safe place to raise a family, get an education, worship freely, and have interest shown in them as people.
I implore you, please take time to get to know the foreigner among you. You have no idea what God may be doing through them. Jesus' message of the Kingdom of God has frequently been tied to the movement of peoples and refugees.
Push past your fears. Enter their lives. Hear their stories. Put yourself in their journey. Allow your heart to be enlarged for those who are closest to the heart of the Father. You will never be the same, and neither will your faith.
““Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.” (Matthew 25:34–35, NLT)
