In Greek the word compassion is splagchnizomai which means to be moved in the inward parts, or in today's language, it makes us sick. This is the same word used in Matthew 9:36, "When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." The state of the people Jesus encountered made him sick. But he didn't stop with a stomach ache, it made him so sick that he was moved to do something about it.
Over the last couple of months I have been talking to my church on Sunday's mornings during what we have named the Mission Moment. Early this year I was praying one morning and thinking about the little girl we sponsor through Compassion International and I'm not even sure how my mental train proceeded from there but I starting thinking about unreached people groups (whole tribes, ethnicities, villages, etc that have never even had the opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus), poverty, orphans, and human trafficking victims. And I really felt like God was telling me to "tell the people". So I mentioned it to Tommy and he said that he was actually hoping we would have something like that soon and was planning on asking me about it. That was all the confirmation I needed. So I have spent the last few months "telling the people" and in the process I have learned a ton about the condition of the world outside of my safe, stable little bubble. More than I wanted to know about things that I do NOT want to even have to think about. I don't like to think about millios of moms watching their kids go to bed hungry while we are throwing food away. Or about the crazy number of orphans in the world. Or about the millions of people who are born and then die and go to hell, having never been told about Jesus' love for them. Or about little kids as young as three who are being forced to work to supply rich consumers in America with makeup. Or about little girls the age of my girls being sold as sex slaves for $90 or less and then raped, sometimes many times a day, until they die alone.
Honestly it's all just too much for me to handle. In fact I'm hiding in my room sobbing as I type this. It's 2015 for goodness sakes, the these just shouldn't be true. There are more slaves in the world today then ever before in history, an estimated 27 million. There are 600 million kids living in extreme poverty- on less than $1.25 a day. There are almost 4,000 entire groups of people in the world who have no access to the Bible or to the knowledge of what Jesus did for them, that's over 3 billion people living with out hope. Those numbers are staggering and heart breaking. It all literally makes me sick at my stomach, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe God intentionally made compassion to have a physical side effect so that we wouldn't be able to ignore it, or be too busy, or stick our heads in the sand. Maybe once we know something terrible is happening God gives us that sick feeling so we, like Jesus was, will be moved with compassion to the point of action.
When God asked me to "tell the people" I'm sure it was intended to be as much for me as it was for them. And I'm sure He knew it would make me sick. And that I would shake "my fist at Heaven, and say, 'God, why don’t You do something?'" Just like the Matthew West song says. God's reply is likely just as the song states too, "He said, 'I did, I created you'". God never meant for us to focus on ourselves or what's good and easy for us. He planned for us to sacrifice self to show his love and forgiveness and hope to others. He set the example by dying to redeem us and tells us "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:13). Laying down your entire life for some one sounds pretty drastic, but it makes it very clear that it shouldn't be about our needs and comforts but we should be living and giving and serving and laying ourselves down for the good of others. This is hard stuff, this requires that we make some changes, changes in how we spend our money and time, changes in how we set goals, changes in how we view people and the conditions they live in, changes in just about every area. He made us to do something. We are each different by design and gifted in doing different things but the end goal remains the same, to love God and love people, no matter what. That includes mean people, scary people, people who disagree with us, people who look and live differently the we do, everyone. Period. Matthews 22:39 say we are to "love our neighbor as ourselves". If something is good enough for me then it's good enough for everyone and I should be willing to do whatever I can to make sure they are taken care of.
Please take some time and make yourself aware of the tragic conditions in the world and consider if YOU were the one starving, enslaved, homeless, hopeless, or headed for hell, would you understand why people are living in luxury watching you die outside their window? If it makes you sick to know how hard things are for so many people, praise God! He is using compassion to move you to action! We certainly can't change the entire world alone, but we can do so much if we join forces and take and stand, we can also make a world of difference by investing in the people right around us. Find ways to help and serve and rearrange so that at the end of your life you will know you used everything you had to make the world a less tragic place to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment