After a while, you build up barriers to block the pain. The burden is too heavy and the needs are too great. Far to great for anyone in this world to bear.
Whether you yourself are facing a personal crisis, or if life is just dandy at the moment, rather than risk opening your heart up to the knowledge of what’s happening outside it’s walls, you keep putting up defenses.
You fill your mind with daydreams, distractions and petty worries–anything to keep yourself from having to face what people half the world away are facing.
You get so caught up in the next episode of your new favorite TV show, or caught up in the all-consuming whirlwind of social media, or in the busyness of ordinary life.
And you choose to stop reading the news. You choose to scroll quickly past the occasional “world-in-crisis” news story that a concerned friend posts on his or her wall…that story that desperately needs to get out there.
And then one night, you decide to read the news. You see pictures of dead children, snatched from this life by weapons that were only aimed generally in their direction. You see fathers weeping because their son or daughter is gone.
You become angry. You cry for them. You wonder “how in the world did I get to this place, where my fantasy world has become more important than the real world”.
You wonder why in the world you decided to stop hurting for those around you. When did you decide that your own hurts and struggles were the only ones that really mattered.
Why did you stop “bearing one another’s burdens”.
Why did you take the easy route…the route that demands less of yourself.
You can’t fix the world’s problems. And the few that you do try to take on will probably lash out at you and injure you before they are tackled.
But when did you decide to stop feeling?
I don’t think that great change can come in this world without our Savior.
And I don’t think that He left his children behind on this earth to stand by and watch while others are hurting.
But great change can’t come about unless it is fueled by a God-given passion to love others.
I don’t think that we can fix the world—it is broken, sinful, and only going to be made new after Jesus comes back.
But there is still work to do, and I want to believe that we can still get involved. I can get involved.
Right now, I need to give myself a good talking to, and remind myself that this world does not consist of the number of “likes” or comments I get under my FB posts. It doesn’t consist of how many “hearts” my Instagram pics produce. This has always been a struggle for me. It’s ironic that it’s still a struggle (maybe even more ingrown) now that I’m about to graduate from Bible school.
But, change my heart O God. May I be like you … because I surely can’t change it by myself.
Tracing Rainbows Through Rain 