"The energy I spend avoiding others. I establish an emergency relief fund instead of inviting hungry families to sit at my table. I develop a housing program to avoid the turmoil of displaced families living in my home. I create employment projects that distance me from the aggravation of working with undisciplined people. As a counselor I maintain some detachment with a fifty-minute hour and an emphasis on client self-responsibility. And even as I share the gospel with the needy, I secretly hope that God will handle their problems.
"Of course I don't allow myself to think this way very often. I choose rather to concentrate on the positive things I am doing for people, helpful things, right things. But when I am honest with myself, I must admit that I cannot fully care for one who is suffering without entering into his pain. The sick must be touched if they are to be healed. the weak must be nourished, the wounded embraced. Care is a bigger part of cure.
"Yet I fear contagion. I fear my life will get out of control, and I will be overwhelmed by the urgent affairs of others. I fear for my family. I resist the Christ who beckons His followers to lay down their lives for each other. His talk of a yoke, a cross, of bearing one another's burdens and giving one's self away is not attractive to me. The implications of entering this world of suffering as a "Christ-one." as yeast absorbed into the loaf of human need, are as terrifying as death itself. Yet this is the only way to life. The question is, will I choose life?" - Robert. D. Lupton
I used to fear becoming a social worker. The pain that would come with every story. The tragic lives of broken people. Hearing it everyday. Seeing it. Wondering how the world could have gotten this far. What would it do to me? I am so very emotional. How could I handle that all the time? And I hold on to things to. Would I really be able to leave those things at work or would the flow into my life with Nate and onto my children one day. Would I become a basket case? Would I turn cynical and end up hating mankind for the things we can do to each other? Surely, it would be better, and more healthy to choose a different profession.
Or is it a lifestyle required of every Christ follower? We are supposed to have hearts of flesh! We are supposed to be getting deep into the lives of broken people! Instead we minister to a few kids here and there and say "God bless" to strangers. We stay safe. We stay close. We stay comfortable. And worst of all, we satisfy our Christ-filled consciences for a little longer.
I love the way Avalon sings about it:
I hide me far away from trouble
The world outside me grows darker by the day
So I promise to stay here close beside Him
Surely God would want His children safe
Then in reading, how my eyes were opened
I find that He is leading us out into the world
Into the middle of fallen saints and sinners
Where a little grace is needed most
-Come take the Light to darker parts
Share His truth with hardened hearts-
We are not like the world, but we can love it
Come bring the hope to hopeless men
Until the lost are found in Him
He came to save the world so let us be
in it not of it
"When you feel compassion for something, that's what God has called you to. And you better do it. Don't hesitate." I heard that at my first Youth Jam and it has stuck with me ever since.
I think Jesus calls us to be the "bleeding-hearts" of society. What are we doing in our living rooms, sanctuaries, and offices if not saving the lost? If not reaching out to the hurting in humanity?
O Jesus change my heart. Help me to invite Your suffering along with Yourself. O Lord move me with Your compassion and help me to listen and obey. Not talk myself out of it like I did today.
Morgan }|{ "Look at Jesus only."
