Troubled Times

Questions abound in my restless heart as I watch the news. So much death. So much despair. Who can handle such horrifying glimpses into depravity?

In the age of social media we are supposed to all become expert diagnosticians knowing why things happened and who is at fault and how best to fix things. Tragically none of these diagnoses ever seem to get to the heart of the matter: the heart.

Our politicization and polarization have lead to an improper prioritization of our own needs. For those who claim Christ this should not be so.

Too often believers are calculating in their compassion. We give as long as we can stay comfortable. We love as long as others are not too difficult or different. Or we speak of love but act in self preservation.

Too many in our world feign support for causes with social media and loudly verbalized opinions but very few are willing to actually engage and listen and serve and love and sacrifice. Too many let their "likes" or profile images be the extent to which their concern carries them.

The gospel does something weird to suffering and hardship. Through the cross of Christ the very things that the world most fears and most dislikes can become powerful and redemptive and healing.

When we say we want to be the "hands and feet of Jesus" we often are promoting a thinly veiled do-gooder Christianity that leaves us feeling good about ourselves. What we fail to grasp is that the hands and feet of Jesus didn't just walk through the villages and heal the blind and feed the crowds. The hands and feet of Jesus bear terrible and beautiful scars because he chose to be nailed to a cross on our behalf.

Those who follow Jesus have been called and equipped to enter into suffering and hardship and sorrow. Just as Christ, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, so we can and should choose to enter into the brokenness in our world.

There are many in our neighborhoods and across the globe who watch the same sorrowful and seemingly hopeless news that we watch without the hope of the gospel. The news assaults us all and leaves us feeling hurt, broken and bruised, some more than others. What a tragedy that many don't know the great Healer who can bind up the brokenhearted and who is preparing a place where death and sadness and tears will no longer be.

May we press into these hard places with the hope and light of Jesus Christ.