A Hidden People

I had a crazy dream one night while we were still living in Berlin.  I dreamed about a famous actor living with us.  As he began to share his story with us, we found that he had almost nothing in his life that was real. We found he was actually deaf, but his parents found it shameful and had trained him to read lips very well and to hide this fact from the world.  He was also very unhealthy and no one even knew his real name. We shared the love of our family with him and he was so open and so needy for love.  He planned on living with us for awhile, when he wasn't filming.  

When I awoke, I cannot even tell you how broken my heart was for him.  I actually wept for this man who was so broken and hidden and a person the world assumed "had it all." 

That was the beginning of yet another change in my heart.

You see, I have denied the validity and reality of the mission field that I now stand on.  I have considered people in the entertainment industry a lot of things....greedy, spoiled, overly-wealthy, self-centered, pitiful, impure, perverse.....the list is long.  Somewhere in that long list, I lost sight of the fact that they were human.  In my judgement on them, I made no room for their stories.  Judgement does something to us as believers.   It closes our eyes of compassion.  Judgement speaks but does not listen.  It makes assumptions and casts shadows.  Compassion and understanding are lost in all the shadows.  Until recently, I didn't know how clouded my eyes actually were.

Then, last week, I heard the truth of Hugh Hefner's story and it broke my heart.  (And yes, I said Hugh Hefner--the founder of Playboy magazine). We know a believer here in Hollywood that had to interview him for their job.  When they asked about his childhood, the bomb dropped.  It seems Hugh grew up in a family where love was neither spoken nor physically expressed.  His mother was a germaphobic person and he does not recall her ever holding, kissing or hugging him.  He did have a blanket that he slept with every night for comfort, that was trimmed in bunnies.  When he had some problems with his ears that could have resulted in deafness, his mother consented to let him have a puppy.  She had the puppy placed in a part of the house she did not go into.  Hugh was completely in charge of the dog.  He loved the dog and even gave it his bunny blanket.  The dog died suddenly 5 days later from a disease no one knew it had.  In this devastation, Hugh's mom burned his blanket in front of him to rid the house of germs.  Hugh told the interviewer, 

"So, I guess I am just a little boy still looking for love."

I sat in shock as I heard this and thought of all the times I haven't even wanted to hear this man's name, because of the perversion attached to it.  When, in reality, what he was craving and desperately looking for in all the perversion, is the love from his mommy.  Which, as we as believers know, is sourced in Jesus' very heart.

On a BBC TV show I saw a while ago a man said, "Real poverty isn't bad housing and having no money, it is never having been loved or respected."

Hugh Hefner is surrounded by wealth and fame and money, but is spiritually poor and dying from starvation.  He is only a boy who needed to be genuinely loved.   And so, my eyes have been made even clearer and I could see again why God has us in the depths of Hollywood.  Poverty is not limited to money.  I cannot waste more time denying the spiritually poor their birthrights.  They cannot be denied the truth because they don't stand for biblical principles.  Why would they?  If the law is all they have seen, mix that with being constantly judged, and the absence of love slams the door in their faces.

Don't misunderstand...I'm not talking about overlooking immorality and excusing or sugar-coating sin.  I'm talking about loving people because they are God's children and giving them the opportunity to have real love and real family extended to them so they can really see Jesus for the first time.  When His love and power invade peoples lives, then He changes morals and reverses character flaws and sheds light on the dark places.

Perhaps Jesus understood that the rich have a harder time getting into heaven than others because they are so often denied hearing and experiencing the true gospel.  And why?  Simply because of who they are and what they have. (Don't fret, I have read the scripture and I know what it says....I'm just speculating a bit.)

I think of myself and of some people I love.....

We would never deny ourselves or our loved ones the chance to experience the love of Jesus just because of their social status. We would fight against an injustice like that. But this is what has been happening. It is a reversed prejudice that we cannot hold to any longer.  In a judgement absent from all the facts, we have willingly turned our backs on an entire people group. Somehow, I unconsciously decided that these people were rejecting Jesus, when in fact, they have never seen Him.  They have only seen a perverted or distorted image of Him.

What if all your friends only wanted to be with you because of what you could do for them?  What if the only person who genuinely cared and was trying to help you was paid to listen to you...would that be genuine?  Money and fame are false loves because people love those things and not the real person.  We must be willing to love past the demonic strongholds that are concealing a broken person.

As believers we cannot allow our purity to become distorted into haughtiness that blockades the true love of Jesus from those that desperately need Him.

So, what I had known before was challenged.

And now, what I had known before has expanded.  

Everybody needs compassion.

Everybody needs a real chance to know love.

Everybody needs Jesus.

Everybody.