Last thoughts on helping refugees....maybe

Ok- I think I need to say this. I have posted a few things about the Syrian Refugee crisis here and on Facebook, and I think I may have been misunderstood (or have not written clearly). Please do not get me wrong, I am not in any way saying that we should not take any refugees or help people from other countries anymore. As a Christian if I were to make a blanket statement like that then you can and should call BS on me. I do think that anytime we can we should help others. I do have a problem with many of the METHODS that are being used to "help" not only refugees, but ALL public welfare as it exists today.

I have a problem with the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT running these programs because:

#1 I do not have faith in the federal government's ability to run programs like these (pretty poor track record)

#2 I do not believe it is in the SCOPE of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S responsibility to manage social welfare programs (based on the Constitution)

Just because there are people out there that need help both locally and abroad does not give the federal government or anyone, for that matter, the right to tell ME how to help them. That is up to me and God will ultimately judge me for my actions on this earth. You may think that everyone should help everyone, and that I make more than you and so therefore I should give more than you, and that we should open up our borders to everyone because we are only here because of our immigrant ancestors and whatever else you want to think and that is fine. You can think all those things. That STILL doesn't give the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT the right to make those decisions for me (and you either). Most of the money they collect for these programs doesn't even make it to the people it is intended for anyway. We have increased our spending on welfare, social programs, etc. every year for DECADES and the problems keep getting worse. Why is that? Could it be that these programs are being mismanaged somehow? Could it be that asking a huge bureaucracy such as the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to manage this is simply bad practice?

At the end of the day I want to help people who are suffering, but I want to choose. If I want to give my money away to people in my own city or my own state or another country, that should be MY CHOICE. Right now, I am not given any choice in the matter. I have less to give to help others in my community because our Federal Government has decided it knows better than me (note I have said FEDERAL government here.... there may be a place for some of this in state government, but that is a different topic).

Furthermore- I want the time, talent and resources I spend to go toward actually helping people. I do not believe it is very Christian to blindly WASTE all of those things on people who are not actually being helped, either because they refuse to actually be helped or because some bureaucracy mismanages these things. With Trillions in debt, thousands of homeless, civil unrest, etc. I question whether bringing more people who need help here is a very loving thing to do. So we will add more people to an already stressed system (not to mention the cultural implications)? Look at it this way- if you opened up your home to me because I was downtrodden and needed help, but then you told me that you could not feed me because you already had enough mouths to feed and actually, I needed to sleep outside because you didn't really have any room for me because you had taken in too many others already, I would question how charitable you really are and probably be a little upset. How did you actually help me? OR maybe you put all that assistance you gave me on credit cards and then filed for bankruptcy....placing your mismanagement of resources on the backs of others (trillions in debt anyone? )

This is what I meant in an earlier post when I said that we are reacting far too much on EMOTION and not enough on LOGIC. We all have finite resources. The government has NO RESOURCES without us. If we do not start to become discerning about what is happening with those resources (be it money, time, housing, jobs, or anything else), they will be gone and then no one will be helped.

Let's PAUSE and ASSESS people.

Selfish or Smart- Closing our borders as an act of love?

I've been struggling with the topic of immigration and more recently the Syrian Refugee crisis for a while now. I am a very emotional person and my first response to almost anything is emotional.  Logic and reason are things I have had to work very hard to develop.  Early on in my marriage one of the biggest challenges Chad and I faced was how differently we reacted to everything. He is all about logic and data, and I am all about emotion and how something makes me feel. We butted heads A LOT because of this!  I've learned over the years to find some balance; to consider the facts as well as how I feel, always considering how my walk with Christ directs me to respond in light of those things.

I'll be honest. Our government's response to immigration and refugees and their lack of attention to our national security OR our our own financial, homeless and racial crisis has me extremely worried.   The emotional part of me wants desperately to help everyone who is afraid and hurting.  Pictures of children and families who are desperately trying to escape war and violence tug at my heart.  Knowing that the United States began as a country of immigrants confuses the issue in my head as well.  When I stop to really think reasonably and logically, though, I believe there is something very, very wrong with the direction we are going in this country when we don't place a primary importance on taking care of our own citizens and our own problems.

I believe that there is a huge imbalance in this country between the emotional thinkers and the logical thinkers, with the emotional thinkers taking over virtually all decision/policy making in this country. Because of this I believe we are being taken advantage of and lied to when it comes to the Syrian Refugee situation. 

In the best case scenario, if these really are innocent women, children and families who are trying to escape war and violence, how in the world can we afford to keep doing this as a country?  We are already drowning in debt, and have so many people already on some type of government assistance that we are about to collapse under the weight of it all.  Sure we want to help the needy, but at what point have we used up our ability to do so?

In the worst case scenario these are not really innocent women, children and families but rather they are people bent on destroying others who don’t subscribe to their way of life (especially Americans and Christians).  As emotional people who want everyone to love one another I know we don’t want to believe that, but are you really willing to risk the safety of your family by completely ignoring some fairly compelling evidence that this describes at least some of them?

This is more than just a security issue, though, it is also an issue of available resources and a financial issue for this country.

What is wrong with taking a PAUSE in order to truly assess this situation?  In my job (Human Resources) that is often my response to a potentially risky situation.  Instead of pressing to make a hasty quick decision, sometimes we have to pause and figure out what is going on and what all our options are BEFORE we act. Sometimes the action we end up taking isn’t what we WISH we had to do, but it is what we MUST do based on the evidence.  I have been involved in many employee terminations over the years.  I’ll be honest, there have been some that were pretty easy for me.  There have been some, though, that were difficult and that wish I didn’t have to do, but based on the evidence it was the right thing to do.  That is the way the world works, sometimes we like what we have to do, and sometimes we don’t, but we have to find a balance between our heads and our hearts.

I want to challenge all Christians especially to stop for a second and think about how we are truly called to behave. When Hebrews 13:16 says "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God”… you can’t ignore the words “what you have”…. God calls us to share what we have to share, not what we don’t have.  Bringing more people to America who need assistance when we don’t have it to give is wrong.  We are TRILLIONS in debt already, where are all these resources coming from?  Ecclesiastes 5:5 says “It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay” and Psalm 37:21 says: “The wicked borrows and does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives.”  Clearly God says that borrowing more than you can repay is wrong.  How are we going to pay what we owe already?  Promising more assistance to people who need it when we have to borrow that assistance is wrong- regardless of their situation.  Haven’t you ever heard the saying “robbing Peter to pay Paul”?  That is just ONE problem I have with all of this.

As a Christian I know we are called to help others.  For those Christians out there that are touting the love one another route over all else, I have a question for you.  When was the last time you brought a homeless person (or family) home with you to have a hot meal and a warm place to sleep?  How much of your personal time and resources do you give to the homeless, refugee, foster, elderly communities in your own city/state/country?  If you are one of the very few who spend a lot of time doing these things and HAVE brought people into your own home then you can talk about showing love and giving everything to others as much as you want.  The rest of us need to check out own behavior before calling out others (ME included).

Anyway- that is a long winded lead up to sharing the below article. It covers a lot of the questions and concerns I have, written in a thoughtful way.  Hopefully you’ll take a look and then raise your voice based on actual facts rather than simple emotion.
As We Allow Syrian Refugees in the U.S., There's Something Many Have Overlooked