“May my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” -Bob Pierce, Founder, World Vision.
You know, if I truly believed this, my day would’ve turned out a whole lot different.
In my periphery I see a woman sitting alone two tables across from me. Her hair, unkempt. Her shirt, dirty. Her fingernails, black with dirt. She looks over at my sandwich and then quickly looks away. I hold the sandwich away from my mouth as I look at her. Her back is hunched over. She is talking to herself and looking around at others as they walk in. I freeze.
It was 8:45am at the local McDonalds and I was waiting for a friend to arrive so that we could go out to a video shoot together. I walked into the restaurant and bought a sandwich. I sat down and began to eat. Not long after I see this woman two tables over. The more I observed her the more my heart began to break. She seemed so out of place as if she was right off of the streets. She was heavily contrasted by the other people who had the latest clothing style, jewelry and hair-do. I froze as I really began to feel for this woman. I then took another bite of my sandwich and I literally couldn’t swallow. My throat was totally closed up. I began to run through several scenarios as to how I could help this woman. “I could give her some money for food. But then she might take the money and go buy booze or drugs.” “I could ask her if she wanted anything to eat. But then she will be embarrassed and not accept my offer.” “I could go up to the counter and give an employee some money and ask them to give the woman something to eat. But then they might not want me to “feed the beggar” and increase the chances that she will be in each day doing the same thing.” Two words can describe what I was doing here…SELF-FOCUS. I was so focused on self that I couldn’t even see past my nose. If I had taken the time to ask the Lord to give me wisdom on how I could serve this woman, I am sure that the focus would’ve shifted very quickly from ME to the LORD. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-39, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (ESV). If I truly was living this out I would’ve loved this woman the way that Christ commands us to. I ended up dropping my sandwich and walking out of McDonalds. I was broken. I was so repented about what I had done, or in this case, failed to do. It was such a good, but hard, reminder for me to “walk by the Spirit.” To walk by the spirit means to love God with all that is within us, love and serve others, look out for the interest of others, putting them above your own.
My question for you is the same one that I asked myself. What is it going to take to get you to think outside yourself and serve others? Is it going to take a hungry, dirty, street woman to get you to do this? It wasn’t enough for me! What is it going to take to break your heart so that you might look out for the interest of others? Let us pray for God to break our heart for the things that break His.
April 29, 2009 at 2:05 am |
I can so relate to this topic at this point in my life. Like you, it isn’t the “hungry beggar” that grabs our attention but rather our heart or rather our lack of heart for God’s heart. Sometimes we have a problem sharing the simple things that we consider “ours”: like “our” space, “our” time, “our” food, “our” family.
We spend more time deliberating about what to do instead of doing the good things; then we hear ourselves and wonder how we could think so selfishly. That isn’t what I was taught in Sunday School or at my mother’s knee. It isn’t about “me, my, or mine” but rather everything “we” own isn’t really “ours” if we really belong to him.
Then we feel pretty bad that we missed another opportunity to be kind and loving so instead of berating myself like I often do, I have to say to myself “Stop.” I picture a big red stop sign in my mind and say, Lord, “next time.” Next time there is an opportunity to do the loving thing, help me to be in turn with you and listen to your heart and not to my selfishness.
I wish I could say I pray that more often then I do, but God is still teaching me to listen to his voice if I would only be silent long enough to listen.
“He is not done working on me”, mom would often say. Or another of mom’s many sayings, “Where there is life, there is hope.” Yes, mom, there is indeed – hope.
You ask, “What is it going to take to break your heart? For me it has been a series of things. First, it was meeting a young man who got out of prison who asked a lot of us: he wanted time, attention, food and friends. At first my response to my sweet husband was: “Let someone else do it.” To my husbands credit, he responded: “But Jane we are somebody else.” That started a whole chain of events: a beginning of a change in me, a new thought process, and God has continued to change me one event after another like mom’s sudden departure from this planet when she broke her neck, arm and ribs, and then died soon after. Then, my sister’s cancer returned; next two people who attended my mom’s funeral died after hearing about Christ and they were both younger than me but did I ever tell them about Christ before mom’s funeral – no.
But that was not enough for me. My knee went out before Jonathan’s wedding and it still isn’t right yet. Now I am beginning to get the point. I do hear him more in my pain but he is not done with me yet, thank God, because I give up so easily, don’t listen, etc. I could go on but you see: It is not about me, is it?
April 29, 2009 at 1:24 pm |
Adam,
I go through much of the emotion that you just talked about when I contemplate reaching out to the church body or return a phone call. I start self focusing. So in the past weeks, I feel God calling me to just pick up the phone and say a quick prayer and then just trust His amazingly powerful Holy Spirit and you know what it has been stregthening me only through his power. Thanks for your inspiring message.
THank you GOd for working in Adam’s life to minister to those near and far around him.
In Jesus name I pray.