There certainly isn’t universal agreement on the refugee crisis. In fact to some, the term “crisis” is itself questionable. Many have described this as an outright “Muslim Invasion” of Europe.

As I attend a Calvary Chapel, where simplicity of thought reigns supreme, here is my super-simple take on the political side of this, using a bit of alphabet soup.

I recognize points in the following argument that lack nuance; I do not purport to know answers to this crisis. I can only say that the below line of thinking is viable enough to justify, to myself, the work we are doing here:

Say you come across a guy who has been walking, hiking, crawling from point A for the past year. He has lost half of his family and most of his money on the journey.

His intention is to reach point Z. But you meet him at point T. He is cold, wet, hungry, possibly sick and terrified especially of what awaits him should he return to points A-P(ish).

Given his determination to reach point Z, do you REALLY think ignoring him at point T will discourage him from reaching his goal? Furthermore, those of us comfortably sitting at point Z, do we want to receive multitudes of people who were ignored, possibly abused, at all points along the way?

Most of our larger endeavors in life are gambles. There is no way to know the outcome of our actions until we look back later and see how things turned out. We can’t know how the Western world will change as a result of these things happening today.

And so in this, one the greatest crises ever seen by the combined Western and Eastern worlds, bets need to be made.

As such I bet on love and kindness. Rarely, if ever, do these things result in loss.