In September Tommy and I went to a Youth Minister's Conference called Refuge. It was an amazing couple of days meant to focus on God and refuel and those things were accomplished, but one of the songs we sang and prayed that week changed things for me. "Hosanna" by Hillsong United is a beautiful song with great words; I had heard it and even sung along before, but that week I made the bridge my prayer:
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseenShow me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what is yours
Everything I am for your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
I have always been told to be careful what I ask for... this might have been a good time to heed that warning. The weeks and now months that have followed that simple prayer have been a little overwhelming. My eyes have truly been opened to the hurts and pains and fears of the students in my life and it honestly breaks my heart. I am assuming the people around me have always had these same scars and hurts in their lives to one extent or another, I have just never been so aware of them before. If I am experiencing even a minuscule percent of the amount God's heart breaks for them and really all of us, then God is far more compassionate and concerned and parental that I have ever given Him credit for. I mean I always knew He was all those things, but to actually feel it for myself brings new light on the tremendous love God has for His children. God's heart breaks when we are lonely, afraid, confused, exhausted, conflicted, hurt, scared, needy, unloved, under-appreciated, unwanted or even just tired. Everywhere I look there are people who are experiencing loneliness and fear and a whole spectrum of less than perfect conditions.
Compassion has always been something I have heard about and have been taught and even taught to others as something we should practice in our Christian lives, but I am learning that true compassion goes further than just feel bad for some one. The word compassion, on several occasions in the bible, is the word splagchinizomai which means to be moved to the pit of your stomach with love and pity. Jesus had compassion on the crowds in Matthew 14, it hit Him in the gut how helpless and hopeless the people were. I have been hit in the stomach myself lately, sick over the hopeless, desperate condition of "my kids". Jesus not only had compassion on the crowds, He did something about it, He went on to heal their sick and then feed all of them. I think that God lets us feel that pang in order to push us to do something about the problems we see. It would be easy for me to ignore what my eyes have seen if I didn't "feel" it for myself. Having my heart broken for the things that break God's heart and learning true compassion are honestly not the most comfortable warm and fuzzy things I have ever had to learn, but I know it is making me more like Jesus not to mention forcing me to lean even harder on the loving arms of my Heavenly Father.
So, be careful what you ask for, you never know when a simple pray will keep you up at night. But even more importantly please remember that God is not just a distant creator in the sky, He is deeply in love with His children and He wants to comfort them and hold them close through everything this world throws at them. If God can "show me how to love like He loves me," that will definitely make all this worth it.
