I remember first learning the meaning of the phrase “break my heart for what breaks yours.” It was 2 years ago in L.A. As I spent most days in the projects, the things I saw began to wreck me. Gang fights, shootings of kids we knew, it all led me back to this is what break Gods heart. It crushes him.
Month six, here in Zambia, I’m reliving those feelings. I’m reliving what I felt when my heart first broke, due to the things I’m seeing in ministry day to day.
Let me paint a picture for you.
A pastor with a big heart
A school filled with kids
No money
Children being sent home due to school fees not paid
Some showing up with black eyes
Others expressing the only meal they eat is the one provided at school
This is our ministry.
Why is it that something we love so much such as ministry can be the hardest thing we do throughout our day?
Everyday I have the amazing opportunity to teach, yes actually teach out of a book, to the 8th and 9th graders. When I look at them as some days the classes gets smaller, I see this sense of hopelessness in their eyes.
My job is to stare this kid in the eye who only eats once every other day, with a black eye, who wears the same thing every day, that there is a God out there who loves her more then any other human walking this planet we call earth?
Shoot.
I didn’t realize that when I started walking with Christ, I would see things through his eyes so much. I didn’t realize he would allow me to die to my own vision, my flesh, and let my heart break for the things of this world that break his.
Wow. I have an amazing Heavenly Father! As hard as it it sometimes seeing the things we see, I am thankful for it. I’m thankful I can see a glimpse of how he feels for his sons and daughters and is using me as a small part in their lives to bring hope. I might not understand it myself, but I know that because of Jesus, because of God, there is hope in what seems to be a hopeless place.
There is hope in destiny school, Lusaka, Zambia.
The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope. Lamentations 3:24
