Now I know saying it like that sounds derogatory - but it is not. It is merely a statement of fact. I do not moan or complain that it is "one of those weeks". Instead, I feel.
Have you ever logged onto Facebook and noticed that it is one of those weeks? No, not the weeks where little annoying issues arise in people's lives. Not the #firstworldproblems kind of weeks. The kind of week where you log onto Facebook expecting some statements of the obvious, some interesting updates on peoples lives, and a few witty lines here and there. But instead, Facebook slaps you across the face with the painful reality that this world is filled with hurting people.
One glimpse at your newsfeed and your misconceptions about how all your friends are happy, they have it all together, they are in a good spot right now--those misconceptions go right down the drain. You are faced again with the horrible fact that you try so often to ignore or forget: everyone is hurting about something. This world is filled with pain, heartache, loss, and emptiness. Times when your life shatters before your eyes. Times when not even the most encouraging note can convince you that it will be okay again. Times when the masks come off. When we see the real, raw, gritty, hurting person instead of the porcelain-faced doll they tried to be.
Isn't it funny how one glimpse at our newsfeed can bring us back to reality? How one glimpse can remind us that bad, horrible, horrific things happen in this world...to people we love. How one glance can instantly have us questioning our faith. How one glance can show us the multitude of individuals that find themselves bombarded by different crisis' in their lives. One glance of this hurting world--one tiny itty bitty glance--and we feel the weight. Our hearts are heavy. We lift our hearts to the King of Kings knowing that he has a reason and a plan, but having to accept the fact that His plan incudes pain.
It is one of those weeks.
Now here is the point in the blog post where I turn it back around. Where I tell you that you don't need to have heavy hearts. How we have a God who is in control. How we have a God who has a plan. A God who is the Comforter, the Healer, the King of Kings.
And while that is the God we serve, tonight I am refusing to tell you those things. Too often we hear people telling us, "Here's the facts....but it's okay, don't worry, don't trouble yourselves, it will all be okay.."Because, frankly, we don't like to have heavy hearts. We don't like to feel the tension of a hurting world. We don't like reality.
So we desensitize instead of empathize.
God made us to be empathetic people. He says to laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. We are supposed to feel others pain with them. But we train ourselves not to feel. But that is not how God meant us to be! We try to put all these safeguard up so that we don't get hurt and so that we never feel pain. We find tricks to help us ignore or forget or dismiss the news stories. We invent this "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy for the hurting people in our lives. We want to be happy, right? But each layer of walls and safeguards we set in place makes our life further and further from the abundant lives Christ has called us to live. He created the church to do life together. And yet we don't do that why? Because we don't want to feel pain. Because we want to be happy; even if it is a superficial kind of happy.
Well, I want to challenge you today. Not the general "you" of the general audience reading this. No, I want to challenge YOU. See? You're already trying to desensitize yourself and I haven't even asked you to act yet. Do you feel the weight of this issue? I'm challenging you to feel more. To empathize. To act. To live as the hands and feet of Christ like He has called you to. And that is a great challenge, right? But a challenge doesn't tend to have much weight unless the participant understands the true weight of the issue involved. I'm getting the drift that you don't fully understand it.
No, don't you dare get all defensive on me! I see those walls going up. "I get it!" you say, "Please stop writing. I will do your stupid challenge (albeit halfheartedly), and there's no need for your to explain further."
Okay, okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you get it. Maybe you even allow yourself to FEEL more than the general public does. So then tell me, when was the last time you couldn't sleep because of an issue you saw in the news? When was the last time you cried yourself to sleep because of the pain and hurt your friend was going through? When was the last time you prayed to God with every cell in your body for someone else? When was the last time you felt someone else's hurt as if it were your own and you prayed from the deepest part of your being for them?
I bet you can't answer those questions. And I get it. Because, honestly, I have trouble answering them too!
But today I am standing up and saying that we are doing it wrong. I am calling you as a Christian, to stand up with me to be ambassadors for Christ in a broken and hurting world. To bring Christ's love to others through empathy, heavy hearts, prayer, and service. I am calling you to start living in Christ-centered community as it was meant to be. I am calling you to not only laugh with those who laugh, but to also weep with those who weep. Can you do that?
Then please join me!
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