Spiritual Insight: We Have What We Need to Practice Love

When the ancient Israelites heard the command in Leviticus 19:34 — "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt" — God was not asking them to conjure love from thin air. He was asking them to remember. Remember the taste of bitter herbs. Remember the ache of being unwelcome. Remember what it felt like when no one moved over to make room.

You already know what exclusion feels like. You have stood in a doorway scanning a crowded room, hoping someone would wave you over. You have fumbled with unfamiliar customs and felt the heat rise in your cheeks. That memory is not a wound to hide — it is a tool God has placed in your hands. You have everything you need to practice love because you have lived on the other side of its absence.

The Hebrew word ger — stranger, sojourner, the one passing through — appears over ninety times in the Torah. God keeps repeating it because we keep forgetting. Love for the outsider is not an elective in the curriculum of faith. It is the core requirement.

So today, look for the ger in your midst. The new coworker eating lunch alone. The family at church whose names you still haven't learned. The neighbor whose accent makes small talk feel like work. You do not need a degree in compassion. You need only the memory of your own Egypt — and the God who brought you out of it.