Wednesday, August 13, 2014

God, Help Us To Truly See



I don’t know why I was cut to the core so deeply when I found out about Robin Williams death.
Maybe it was because I have been looking into anxiety and depression lately.  Maybe it’s because I have myself dipped my toe in waters of anxiety and depression.  Or maybe it’s because here was a man so loved, so entertaining, so successful in the worlds eyes,  but even so,  at the end of the day he felt the pain of death was sweeter than the pain of life.  He was completely without hope.  I was so sharply reminded that there are people all around us that are dying and bleeding and trying to live in a their shattered worlds.

What can we do?  Can we change the world?  Can we turn the tide of the whole world to see hope and peace in the midst of struggles - in the midst of pain?  Maybe not.  But we can change our neighbors.  We can change the people we work with, the people we pass by everyday.  The people we go to Church with.  We can change OUR world.  In fact, we need to be changing our world.

It’s time we give wings to our love.  It’s time we give feet to our message of grace and hands to our song of salvation.

The world and the Church need real.  We need authenticity.  The world needs us as broken and hurting people ourselves to reach out to the more broken and hurting.

We don’t really need any more programs.  We don’t really need anymore fancy lights on our beautiful stages.  What we need is to realize that there are people all around us dying - both on the outside and the inside.   And they aren’t just “out there.”  They are people literally around us - sitting in the pews next to us, staring into our eyes Sunday after Sunday.

 Let’s knock the walls of the church down and spill out into the world, out in the community, out into their hearts.  Because we live in a broken and pained world today that needs hope, that needs peace, that needs a glass of water.   We need to reach out and feed a starving child.; clothe a homeless man.

It’s all about them.  That’s all Jesus asks of us - that we see them.  We don’t make it about ourselves, and our programs and our hurt feelings and our insecurities and our betrayals,  and our questions with no answers.  But that we make it out about them - the world and those around us.  Jesus was always reaching out - his whole life about them - always them. 

We need to look at the people we see everyday.  Really look at them.. Look beyond their blue and brown eyes and into their souls.  We need to look beyond the beautiful body and see the broken pieces within.  We need to hear behind the smooth words and listen to their screams and cries for help.

Somehow in this world of beauty, in this world of technology and fake-ness,  our senses have been dulled.  Jesus looked beyond the paralytic, he looked beyond the man that couldn't move and said that his sins were forgiven him.  Why?  Because he saw a man crying out for salvation and for freedom of the soul even more than he was crying out for movement.  He looked beyond the physical needs of the woman at the well and saw that she was woman through and through who just wanted to be loved, who just wanted to be valued like everyone else.  He saw.  He truly saw.

God, help us.  God help us to truly see.


2 comments:

  1. It is so true. We need to really SEE the people around us. So many people are hurting, but we don't notice because we are to busy to really see them, to stop a moment to care. Thank you for this post, my friend, blessings to you,
    Charri

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  2. Thank you Charri. Blessings to you too. :)

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