Take Home Folder Hero

Every day when our kids come home from school Misty and I take a minute and go through their "take-home" folders. Checking through their folders is an opportunity for us to discover what our kids are learning, creating, and thinking about.

This past week our middle child, Luke, came home with his folder. Filled with various construction-paper-glue-stick-creations, a spelling pre-test, and this: the description of a hero.

Illustrated to hit home his particular definition of a hero, Luke appropriately points out that heroes do things like pull people out of "big, big" burning buildings and take people to the hospital. For further clarification on who can be he hero he writes: "Dogs also save lives"... yes it's true, even a dog can be a hero. For Luke what makes a hero is not confined to a vocation, but rather expressed in the result of their actions. Quite simply..."They save lives".

The prophet Zachariah writes: "This is what the Lord Almighty said: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'" (7:9-10)

When we practice the words of God and we work to bring justice, mercy, and compassion we "save lives". When we fight against systems that are unfairly stacked against the poor and the alien we "save lives". And when we over-come acts of evil with our own relentless pursuit of love we "save lives".

While we may never have a profession that compels us to run into burning buildings for the safety of others, each day we have opportunities to respond to the "fires" of our world in ways that bring rescue, hope, and healing. We are compelled not by our own grander to be labeled as a "hero", but rather through our identity as God's children to be the kind of people that participate in "saving lives".

How can you be involved in "just ways" in your community? Are there people (or people groups) around you that need to be overwhelmed with mercy and compassion? How are you "plotting love" in your daily living?