Another journal entry…
My mind is cluttered with the pain of this world. My heart is aching more than I have ever felt-more than heartbreak or complete rejection from those you love and respect most. I am feeling more pain now than I have ever felt for myself or anything else I have had a passion for-yes, even for the nations. There is something burning within me, I’m being consumed, engulfed in a blazing fire that’s out of control. I have no control. The only peace I find is when I run into my Father’s arms and allow myself to be swept away into His sweet presence.
I’m completely surrounded by poverty, a terrible infrastructure, dirt, and the poor. Day in and day out, there is no pretty part of town. Children roam every street, elderly women carry heavy loads, land mine and war victims beg at the street corners.
Agony. A ripping pain. I don’t understand it nor can I seem to explain it with words. Before Thailand I found it so hard to cry on the race, always feeling that I had to be strong, couldn’t show any sign of weakness. I was missing it. I was so frustrated at the same time because I felt my heart was so hard and calloused. How could I walk past a family of beggars and not feel anything? How could I hear of thousands of orphans dying of starvation and AIDS and not weep for them? I was tired of being like so many in the world and caught up with myself. I started crying out to God. I wanted a heart of compassion. I wanted to be able to feel with His heart… love like He loves. I don’t think I realized the pain that would come along with that prayer.
I think so many of us make the mistake of going through the motions of
helping people while overlooking the heart of Jesus in the process. We get caught up in the act of it because it’s a good thing to do, yet we choose not to connect with their pain. What would this world be like if we did these things through the heart of Jesus and not just because it was a good thing to do? I’m still trying to figure this out for myself but I find that it’s a conscious thought to choose to really connect with people and feel their pain. It’s so much easier to just go through the motions of teaching English or loving orphans with a happy smile while I twirl them around. But what would it look like if I decided to connect with them, allow my heart to feel their pain, or even more than that, the Father’s heart for them? I think it’s a choice we all make whether we want to love with our own love or dig deeper and love with the heart of the Father. Jesus’ heart isn’t to do a half-crap job and love people only when he feels like it. I believe Jesus walked this earth ministering with passion and reaching out with a heart of compassion for the lost.
What if we started laying hands on people not to focus on seeing someone healed so we could tell others about it or build our own faith or confidence? But what if we started touching lives because we wanted Jesus’ heart to be expressed to them in no other way except that they know that their Father loves them? What if we could get past ourselves and our natural fleshly desires and natural tendencies? What if our natural actions, thoughts, and feelings started to flow out of our Spirits and our hearts, and not from our flesh? Is it possible to be so in love with Jesus, to be so connected to the Father and what He feels, that we begin to feel it too? What if we began loving orphans as if it was their one encounter with Jesus? What if we began to touch with His hands, and act as He would act? Walking on this earth as He would? Not allowing a prostitute, beggar, or sinner to pass us by without first relating to them and reaching out to them in love? Is this life possible? With no recognition, no desire to promote or sustain yourself or flesh?
As Christians and followers of Christ, we are to be Jesus on this earth. But, I know my lifestyle does not come anywhere close to how Jesus must have walked on this earth. I don’t believe it’s about pursuing or striving towards a life of perfection. I believe it’s about going to the root, the core of why Jesus was here. It’s about pursuing a lifestyle of love. Not a numb love of going through the motions, but a lifestyle of suffering, and experiencing the pain of others with them…loving them where they are at and guiding them towards a Father who loves them unconditionally even when our own love fails.
