PSALM 69:20 – Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.
THEME OF THE DAY. HUMAN BEINGS NOT HUMAN DOINGS. My wife walked to my desk and said, “Please read this.” It was a Facebook post from someone we did not know. It was heart-wrenching. It was sad. It painted a very gloomy and dark picture in my mind. Then it brought a sense of conviction. Here is the paraphrase of the post. A woman had lived her whole life in one town. Now she was removed from that town and lived in a nursing home. She had no family. No friends. No acquaintances. And obviously, she would have no visitors, not only because of the days of restrictions we live in but she had no one to visit her. Here is where her story was like an arrow shot to the heart. She requested that anyone, complete strangers, would send her a Christmas card so she could decorate her little room for the holidays. She felt the heaviness of hopelessness, of loneliness, of abandonment, and was reaching out for any human being to enter her life, even by a simple card from an unknown person.
Surrounded. Every day that word describes our worlds. In our neighborhoods, communities, churches, workplaces, and our homes, we are surrounded by human beings who are suffering the consequences of sin. They live in hopelessness, despair, and lack people taking the time and making the effort to love them. And that should never be true of a professing Christian, but too often, it is. Frankly, I don’t love people enough. I don’t serve people enough. I don’t carry the burdens of others enough. I don’t put the needs of others ahead of my own enough. I don’t sacrifice for others enough. I simply don’t manifest Jesus to all the hurting people around me. Oh, by the way, if need be, you may use my last six “I don’t” confession statements as your own. But let’s not stay in that dark place of telling ourselves how bad and worthless we are. Instead, here are a couple of things to help us change those confessions into Christ-like conduct.
If we are to reach the hurting souls around us with the love of God, the hurting as illustrated in the lady posting her hurt to Facebook, we must stop being “human doings” and be human beings. Too much of life is about what we do and accomplish. Tasks, errands, activities, projects, and the various other “human doings” seem to define us more than relationships that are developed, nurtured, and that not in a hurry. Think about your own life. Apart from your physical family, how deep are your relationships with other people – believers and unbelievers alike? Allow me to rephrase the question, “How involved in other people are you relationally and not driven by a common interest, task, project, activity, or event?” Friends, the world needs to see Christians thriving in relationships as human beings not human doings. And foremost, the world needs to see Christians thriving in their relationship with Jesus Christ that manifests His love from them to the hurting masses around us. This will mean less doing and more seeking of Him in Word and prayer.
Another thing to help us be more in tune with our created purpose – human beings loving and serving, and not human doings running around busy and self-absorbed – is to spend a lot of time on our knees pleading, yes pleading, for God to give us His heart for people. We won’t have the love of Christ controlling and moving us into the hurting people around us without a divine work of grace. And praise the Lord, He wants to give us His heart for people. Seek it, ask for it. He is more than willing to give it.
As for the story and Facebook post, it prompted some serious heart-searching in me. Maybe in you as well. And it might just lead me to make a nursing home visit should the Lord allow.
PRAYER: “Father, forgive me when I only see my world and not the world around in need of comfort, hope, and love.”
QUOTE: “We cannot see people like Jesus unless we get the heart of Jesus and that requires diligent seeking of Jesus.”