That 2nd Commandment (Love thy Neighbor)

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The first boy I gave my heart to ended up going to jail as a convicted rapist. By the time I heard this news I wasn’t surprised, but when we met he was this newly saved radical Jesus person who was somehow interested in me.

He remains one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met, highly intelligent, somewhat rogue and we talked about things I’d never been exposed to at the tender age of 13. He also had a dark side which I also grew to know over the years. There was a Charles Manson like hypnotic annointing on him and he had an ability to get women like no one else I’ve met since. And suffice it to say, that in many ways he was evil.

I think it’s likely that my experience with him gave me a lifelong interest in abnormal psychology. It’s also given me compassion for those whom others reject.

When I heard about the uni-bomber, while many mourned the victims, I worried about him. When I hear about terrorists, I wonder about their ideology which makes them willing to die for their beliefs. There’s a certain radicalism that I can’t help but admire there.

When I volunteered for a few years with a nonprofit that combatted sex trafficking, I wondered who was ministering to the traffickers. Who was caring for their souls, who often had just as tragic of stories as their victims. Who was loving them?

Maybe like me you’ve read Love Does by Bob Goff. Or Everybody Always. Amazing books by an amazing man and an accomplished storyteller. He tells this story in Everybody Always about a boy named Charlie whose body parts were harvested by a witch doctor for ritual sacrifice. Charlie was left for dead but lived and Bob helped prosecute his villain—the first witch doctor ever brought to justice in Uganda. The locals were too afraid of the witch doctors to take action. Charlie and Bob changed this. Pretty incredible.

But you know what’s more incredible? And which makes me know that Bob Goff is the real deal and that when he titles a book EVERYBODY ALWAYS he actually means it?

Check this out: https://lovedoes.org/witchdoctorschoolindex/

His organization now runs a school to help witch doctors gain an education so that they are able to change professions. He helped condemn a witch doctor for his crimes, then turned around and opened a school to rescue others. Who does that?

If the gospel is true, it works for the abused child and the pedophile. It works for the the slain and the murderer. It works for the gang member, the con man, and those who take advantage of the elderly. It works for Skinheads, and it works for you and I.

I’m having a tough time learning to love just the ordinary people in my life. But I have aspirations and dreams of learning to love the really wretched.

When I heard about my friend in jail, I tried really hard to track him down, find where he was serving his time, and go and visit him. But he has a very common first and last name and he wasn’t so easy to find. When we were young, he was convinced that he was an apostate. I wanted to go and tell him that Jesus still loved him.

Maybe Jesus has already found him again. I hope so.

Who are you loving today?