A neuro surgeon gave a brief testimony about compassion this week before Pastor Jamie gave the sermon Part One: Loving Our Neighbors in the series, Building a Community of that Loves the World.  He talked about how God was encouraging him to pray with his patients.  He explained how he was worried about being misunderstood.  If he prayed with his patients, would they think he doesn’t know what he is doing or didn’t study hard enough in his classes?  If he prayed with his patients, would they feel like he is trying to convert them?  If he prayed with his patients, would his reputation be muddled by people labeling him as one of those “weird” people who talk to God?  If he prayed with his patients, and the procedure was not successful, would he have done more spiritual damage than good?

But now he prays for his patients, “Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for always being with this person their whole life.  Please give me the wisdom and the success to repair their blood vessels.  In Jesus name, amen.”  He shared how he realized that Jesus said we will be misunderstood, because he [Jesus] was misunderstood.  The fear of being misunderstood is not a reason not to love.  By overcoming this fear of being misunderstood, he realized that the greatest form of authentic love for someone is to pray for them.  As his patients look to him to work miracles in the blood vessels of their brain, he is able to acknowledge the one true God and his power to heal.

I fear being misunderstood.  I think the root of that is the misconception that I “understand so much” that others will have a hard time understanding what I’m saying.  Or maybe that what I am trying to do is so complicated that others won’t have the background to understand what I am trying to say or do. But when did God’s love and a relationship with God get so difficult to understand?  Neither should be difficult to understand.  They may be difficult to receive, but that is not a sufficient reason to not love. Kingdom style loving is like sowing seeds on the rocks, the path, the shallow soil and the good soil.