On My Mind

I had a conversation last week with one of my sweet friends, and my heart has been in a constant turmoil ever since. This is part of what has been flooding my mind all week...

Everytime I see all the hurt and suffering that is going on in the world my heart breaks. I want to fix it so badly. I want to go to Afghanistan and hold those precious children and women who live their lives everyday in fear because there is a constant battle going on....on their street. I want to be in Haiti with all those sweet people who have lost everything they own. Mothers who stay awake all night holding the cloth roof up on their "home" so that their children can sleep and not be rained on. My heart hurts for countries like India and Greece where Human Trafficking is a largly populated crime. Where, in India, 5-7,000 children are trafficked each year. I want to save them. I want to protect them.

Often I am reminded of the verse in Matthew chapter 25 that says "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

It has been very sobering for me to read through "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns. There are many places that it hits entirely close to home. After quoting the entire chapter of Matthew 25, Stearns goes on to write his own version of what we think of this on a daily basis.

"For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed MORE clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved."

As much as it breaks my heart to see the hurting in another country, it doesn't even phase me when I see it across the street or even at my church. I am very quick to judge why others are going through the situations that they are. It's easy to feel sorry and want to comfort someone who lives 8,000 miles away. It's MUCH harder to love my neighbor.

I want this to change. I want to allow God to radically change my heart for the hurting. I want to have the eyes of Christ and see people the way He did. As my desire to have the heart of Christ grows, I know that my desire to see Laura Carlson succeed and be famous, will diminish. I pray that my life every day will seek to make Him famous.