Aliens

I was reminded of a funny story from my student teaching days the other day. I was taking my class through their spelling words and we were discussing the word "alien." I asked if anyone could give me a definition of the word alien, other than a strange creature from outer space. One little girl raised her hand and said, "Isn't it that little kid from the news who came here on a raft and wants to stay in America?" (She was referring to Elian Gonzalez, the big news story at the time.) I chuckled seeing her simple mistake and acknowledged that he was an alien of sorts, but that's not why he was given that name.

The situation came to mind last night as I was reading through Exodus. Somewhere between cooking goats in milk and more information than I ever wanted to know about the innards of a ram, I noticed a very interesting command of God's. He actually says it twice in a matter of two chapters. "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt" (Ex. 22:21). Again in the next chapter He says, "Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt" (Ex. 23:9).

I suppose it stuck out to me because I wondered why God had to say it, nevertheless say it twice, in the first place. It was not that long since they had left Egypt. Surely, they remembered what it was like to be mistreated and foreigners in a strange land and they would never want to do the same to someone else. Well, wouldn't they?

And then I thought about the typical human response to pain. Whenever we are in some sort of physical pain, it's all consuming. It is very difficult to think about anyone or anything else besides the pain and we can't imagine how we took a pain-free life for granted and vow that we'll never do it again. After the pain subsides, however, it's really easy to forget what that felt like. Maybe we remember that it hurt, but somehow the intensity of the pain gets lost in our memories, and we move on in our healthier existence.

While this may be a gift from our Designer in one sense (as I would imagine women would never have more than one baby if they truly remembered what that pain was like . . . so I'm told), in another sense it can cause us to forget what it felt like to be so helpless, so vulnerable, and in need. We get better and hear stories of others in pain and may sympathize with their situation, but we do not allow ourselves to embrace compassion and empathy and remember, truly remember what it was like to be in that position, a person in physical pain, emotional pain, mental distress, an alien in a foreign land of sorts.

I think that's why God had to remind the Israelites, and why He has to remind me not to mistreat aliens in our land. He knew our propensity to live in a self-centered existence, concerned about our plight when we're in it and quick to forget the feeling when we are freed. I pray that God would help me hear the stories of the hurting and aliens around me and truly hear and see them as He does. I pray that He would give me His heart and guide me with His Spirit to know how to best enter in and use my past pain to soothe the pain of those that He brings to me, "to remember what it was like to be an alien" and bring the freedom that He brought to me to those who also need it.