Hybels and Love
My Dear
People,
There's a distinct
sort of energy at play at a school bus stop, sometimes frenetic, often joyful,
even giddy, and, at turns, aggressive, and even unkind. To put it one way,
children, like their parents, show the full range of human impulses. And, like
their parents, children have experiences that shape the course of their lives.
Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in
suburban Chicago, tells one such story:
Little Billy Hybels
was eight years old at the time. He was at a bus stop, one morning, with
fifteen or so other children, when another boy arrived. It was quickly surmised
that this latest arrival was somehow mentally challenged. Soon some of the more
aggressive children were calling the boy "Retard," and mocking him. Billy
watched all this from the perimeter of the action, taking it all
in.
Eventually the bus
arrived and everyone climbed aboard, the scene interrupted.
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At supper that night,
in the course of the family meal, with his parents and four siblings all
gathered around the table, eating and talking away, Billy proceeded to relate
the story of the new boy who had showed up at the bus stop that morning. Billy
laughed under his breath as he told the story, obviously amused, telling how
some of the children had called the boy "Retard."
The next thing Billy
knew, his father did something he had never done before, and would never do
again: he cuffed little Billy on the back of his head.
Shocked, Billy looked
into his father's eyes, to see them filled with tears. It was one of only two
times in his entire life that Bill Hybels was to see tears in his father's
eyes. And his father said, "Billy, God made that little boy and he loves him
every bit as much as he loves you. How could you just stand there and not
defend him?..."
Billy was then sent to
his room.
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A little later, Billy's father came down the hall and apologized for cuffing him. (Hybels said that it was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father discipline any of the children carelessly. And his father was clearly sorry for what he had done.) His father having made his apology, father and son then proceeded to have a long talk.
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As it turns out, and as Hybels knew at the time, both Bill Hybels' father and his mother each had a brother who was mentally challenged. Knowing that puts his father's reaction in some context. That being said, even if it weren't for the two uncles, the truth spoken by Bill Hybels' father would be no less profound, and no less essential: God loves all his children, each and every one, and he asks (expects) us to do the same. Furthermore, some of God's children are especially in need of that love. As Bill's father used to say to him often, "Remember Billy, love people who need love the most."
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Who in your life is most in need of love?
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
