With Eyes Wide Open....

I don't know about you, but I find that doing what Jesus wants me to do and being where He wants me to be is.......well, painful. Why? Because He usually leads us to the most heartbreaking people and places. After all, that's where He'd be, isn't it? The problem is, it can be really overwhelming at times. To constantly live in the face of other people's pain and suffering is not an easy road. The easier road is to set up our own customized private world where we make everything comfortable and pretty. Where we can shelter ourselves from the "dirty" and "depressing". Well, as a Christian, I don't think God is giving any of us that option. Our lives are to reflect Jesus and all you have to do is look in the Bible to know exactly what that reflection should look like. He gravitated towards the broken, the dirty and the depressing. He could always be found with the rejected, the forgotten, the sick and the "sinners". How His heart must have been in a constant state of breaking. How burdened He must have felt by the needs that surrounded Him. Yet, those things weren't enough to stop Him from doing what He had come to do. Jesus did not come to enjoy life. He came to give life. Now, we are being asked to do the same. A time will come when we will live in eternal bliss. No more sorrow and no more pain. But, for now, the world is suffering in unimaginable ways and we are called to go to those places of suffering and offer the same life Christ has given us. Will it be hard? Probably. Will it be painful? Most likely. But, just imagine, if we feel pain because of the brokenness we see all around us, what must Jesus feel? The longer I live, the more I realize that pain isn't always a bad thing. And, in this case, to feel pain......is to be like Jesus.

"The reward for considering the helpless is not just the end result, but the pain, the heart pain, that accompanies it. It is cleansing to hurt when God Himself hurts; it is a good thing."