Starving for Compassion

Right now I’m typing this blog up on my laptop computer, while sitting on the floor of my bedroom which is on the second floor of my apartment, and in my bedroom are beautiful things that I’ve collected over the years, and while I enjoy looking at my bookcases and art and pretty little things from here and there I sip on a sweet tea that I got with a Chicken Caesar Salad at Panera’s with a side of Baked Lay’s for about seven dollars and thirty five cents, and as I munch on the chips which are probably sold by the hundreds per week from this one Panera Bread, I’m thinking that if I don’t finish I’ll just throw them away in my trash can and tomorrow morning the dumpster truck will have collected the trash, but what I don’t really grasp…Is that over 4 million people will die this year from starvation, 1.3 billion people live on less than $1 a day, and that every 3.6 seconds, someone is dying because they have nothing to eat or because they can’t afford it.

And if given my trash, they would dig through it just to eat those chips I threw away.

And as a follower of Christ (the guy who gave to and healed the poor, who said, “go, sell all that you have and give to the poor , and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”) I find it easy to wake up each day to granola bars and television, and somehow, my heart is so callused that I am capable of forgetting that human beings, some my own age, are dying because of selfishness.

I am selfish.

It’s just amazing that the habit of flipping past commercials for Feed the Children or watching it for five minutes, but then finding starving children not entertaining enough is not rare in our society…and even more horrible, in our churches. What happened to compassion for our brothers and sisters? What happened to loving people? What happened to giving of ourselves and our blessings?

What’s most disheartening is that I’m guilty. I’m so guilty. And knowing I’m guilty, I continue to cling to my things, and to my television, and to all of the comforts I possess, but something in me doesn’t want those things. Something in me just wants to give everything that I am, to God, to people, to those hurting…and still I find myself fighting my human nature to cling to the things that give me safety and a home. I cling to things that I do love dearly. I love my art and my cute dresses, and yes, I love even the furniture in my room. Furniture that’s been passed down from great grandmothers and aunts, things that were passed down for the very reason I shouldn’t cling to them; their owners came to the end of their life, and couldn’t take washstands or chests with them, and so, left them to the next generation…

“And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘ you lack one thing: go sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’

“Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Mark 10:21-22

That’s me. I’m the person Jesus loved enough to say, “get rid of your stuff. Because unknown to you, its worthless anyway. So get rid of it, give it to those who really need it…and follow me, because I’m all you really need.” And after he finished saying it, I laughed and said, “Psh. Like I can live without Ann Taylor or Cheez-its or my awesome bookcases.” What’s sad is that I read that make-believe conversation, but it’s the truth. I don’t really need new clothes. I don’t really need the furniture in my room. I don’t really need half the things in my home, they’re just space fillers, but I keep them because I have this weird emotional attachment to them, so much so, that I can look at the homeless and the starving, and clutch my things even tighter hoping they’ll back off because things are more important that human lives. And though I don’t mean to sound so heartless, is that not what I’m doing by the way I live my life? Is that not what we’re all doing every day when we chose to buy something for ourselves rather than consider those who need?

I don’t necessarily think that Jesus calls all Christians to sell EVERYTHING they own. But I definitely get the gist they we shouldn’t love our possessions so much that we would not be willing to sacrifice things for others. That we would choose to buy a new sofa over giving the money to someone in a third world country or down the street.

It’s just really disheartening when you honestly don’t know if you could sell your things to buy for others. Things. Things made from wood, and plastic, and metal. Things that will break and fall apart, things you might just forget about, and things that get left in a heap after you die.

We Christians talk about saving the poor and feeding the hungry and we talk about changing the world. But how are you supposed to change the world when you look just like it. When you love things and stuff just like it?

I think this is our generations biggest struggle. In the bible idols were statues and rituals and gods...but our idols are out things. We worship our stuff...we love our stuff...we choose stuff over people and God's will all the time, just like the man from Mark 10:22. He flat out chose his many possessions over following Jesus completely and with self-abandon, and he chose his stuff over those in need...

Being desensitized to cuss words, okay, whatever, that’s bad. Being desensitized to really horrible movies that people are
1. Capable of imagining
2. Capable of creating
Like Saw or Hostel, that’s pretty bad.

But being desensitized to suffering, and pain, and death in our own species, our own flesh and blood, and being capable of forgetting them altogether is a Tragedy.

Imagine you’re at a grocery store. And on each isle are 50 starving people reaching for food, but people stand there pushing them aside, shoving them out of the way, so they can fill their own carts with Lucky Charms and Little Debbie Cakes and heaps of food that they don’t really even need. And as they stock up, those small voices cry out because their stomachs are empty, their muscle is deteriorating in order to provide some kind of sustenance to their bodies, and their bones are near breaking because they’re the only source of calcium. Imagine their legs swelling with edema. Their faces sinking because they’re so emaciated that fat in their cheeks kept them alive a bit longer. And when their muscle is almost gone, and their skin grasps their bones, the only muscles left are their hearts and those making up their internal structures… until they’re heart wastes away or they die of dehydration or the complete shutdown of their organs… And we just shove them to the ground because their sitting in front of our Easy Mac.

Did I just make you really uncomfortable? I made myself uncomfortable..like I was being too graphic or something. But if anything, I wasn’t graphic enough. I don’t think we can imagine that happening, because we either don’t want to or because we’ve never seen someone starve to death like that before our very eyes. But children have seen their mothers and fathers die. Mothers and fathers have watched their children die. And though we know their dying, we shield our eyes from the ugly and convince ourselves that if we don’t see it, then it couldn't’t possibly exist.

And I can’t help but feel. To feel so much. I feel like this huge hole as been dug into my heart where compassion is supposed to be and I’v left it there all this time because I gave compassion up for what? Stuff? I dreamed of a beautiful house and wonderful job all these years, but now I’m dreaming of building homes for someone else and giving what I make at my job to someone else. It’s not in my nature to be selfless…because I’m human. But I if Christ could place his compassion in me for other people, and fill that hollow place in my heart with himself, I pray, really pray, that He’ll use me. Somehow.

Because it hurts too much to know that we as Christians have forgotten to give, to love, and to die to the world…and so we let those helpless in the world die instead.

The Past Files

It seems that all too often people are saying to each other, “today is today, and the past is the past,” but I think I can speak for the majority of us that all too often the past is today, and today is the past…so the past is really never forgotten, it just kind of intermingles with the present, forming this weird déjà vu where you can be at the grocery store today, but remembering how your heart was breaking as you stood in the ice cream isle at thirteen because Timmy said you were ugly and then threw a water balloon at you (If I just reminded someone of a terrible memory, I apologize).

It is difficult sometimes to put the past where it belongs, in the past. Maybe you’re watching a movie or reading a book or listening to a song that just happens to walk down memory lane in your brain, and then open that filing cabinet that you’ve attempted to lock, but its relatively simple in that moment to just open and take a look at some of those past files. And before you know it, your camping out on that isle looking through all of the files, some of them making you cry, some making you mad, and some making you want to go hide in the sleeping bag you brought along. It’s a problem. It fact it’s a huge problem. One moment you could throw that file cabinet out of your brain and sweep up any dust it leaves behind, and the next you want to lock it up because you feel that maybe the past is worth saving for sentimental or “a lesson learned” purpose.

I, however, don’t want to keep my file cabinets, and this has been a simple conclusion for me to come to.

Maybe, you don’t want your file cabinets either. You see, we as humans (both the A and B type) like to hold on to the past; we like to neatly organize it for easy reference, and we like to keep it fresh so that when it’s time to be referred to, it’s simple to read and remember. I don’t know why, personally it seems useless and doesn’t get one anywhere, but we do it. And yeah, I am pretty good at just walking past the “past files” most days of the year without noticing that their rattling at me, attempting to follow me around, but I think it would much better to not have them rattling at all, for them not to exist at all.

This is where I came to the conclusion that having memories erased from one’s brain could be a really great thing.

“Oh, this happened then, and this happened then, but my brain is about to empty the trash like an over packed e-mail account, so I won’t be thinking about you “happenings” anymore, mkay, so bye-bye. “

Sounds good doesn’t it. Except, my brain isn’t an e-mail account, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a delete key I can manually press. So am I defeated? Do I have live in the past forever? And even if I don’t live in the past, do I still have to refer to it so often, or have it snooping around in my today’s business, and the answer to that overly asked questions is…

NO!!

What?! There’s a solution to the past following me around?? “But how,” you might wondering. Well the answer is so simple and so obvious, that you’re going to laugh, and say, “that doesn’t work.” The answer, Jesus Christ. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Jesus doesn’t have a delete key to my brain, or does he? No, Jesus can’t literally delete the ever present past in your life from your brain, but he can help you make it into something beautiful.

I love Isaiah 43, in fact, I love this one passage SO MUCH, that I keep it in a locket that I wear from time to time, because most days, it’s something I need to hear. “ Ok Martha, that’s great…I’m so glad you shared with me your favorite passage in the bible, but what does that have to do with the big bad past that’s hiding under my bed?” In this passage is one of the most relieving verses in the world, and it says,

“Remember not the former things, not consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19

I don’t know what that verse just did for you, but it just made me want to cry…with tears of happiness. God literally just said to anyone who just read that, “Hey, forget the past, I know it hurts, I know it’s scary and intimidating, and a really ugly thing for you to look at, so STOP looking at it. Don’t “consider the things of old,” because if you’re too busy looking at the past, you might not see the “new things” that I’m doing NOW.” Sigh. I just felt a whole lot of file cabinets get crushed into little pieces by the weight of God’s words. Yeah the past happened, but God is doing something now to make the past look like a dream. But how am I supposed to even see this hope and new future, if I’m wearing my “past glasses” where all I see is distorted to remind me of something that happened a week ago, a month ago, a year ago? Um….you can’t. The past files, have got to go. Stop organizing those horrible things for future reference. I’m not telling you to bury the past somewhere deep inside, because I don’t think that’s a healthy or a great idea. But I think what God is saying in this verse is acknowledge the past, but acknowledge that it’s in the past. When He says, “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,” He’s saying that out of that ugly file cabinet of a past you have stored away, he’s going to create a promising and beautiful future. I think God can use the past, even the ugly past, to teach us of his Love for us when we see the “river” that was formed from those past
“deserts.” When God does good things in our lives, we feel blessed. But when God does good things from the bad parts of our lives…we feel in awe, grateful, loved; really, what do you not feel when God takes your brokenness to replace it with so much promise and hope?

This one verse says to me, “Martha Lee Anne, I see your past, and I know your past, and I know you keep looking back, but look at the good I’m doing with your past; look what I’m teaching you from it, and look towards the beautiful future I want to give you, if you’ll just give all of your past to me.”

But now maybe you’re thinking, “Ok, so God can use my past/wilderness to create a new path, but what about my sins, what’s He going to do with those?”

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I WILL NOT remember your sins.” Isaiah 43-35

Read that again. One more time. Did you really just absorb what God just said to you? Your past, present, and future are all going to have sins, and those sins may be the cause of a lot of those past files you keep regretting and reading and crying over, but if it’s the sin that your crying over, you can grab a hanky and breathe easy. The moment you accepted Christ as your Savior and you gave Him your life to do with whatever He pleases, then your sins were no longer an issue, because for His “own sake,” He doesn’t want to, and will not remember them. They were “blotted” out. Basically, if you’ve ever painted with a child, you know that they get a little paint happy and sometimes whole sections of a drawing can disappear from the paint that was just slapped, brushed, or dropped on by the hand of that child, so when the painting is done, you may see a horse’s legs, a body, and a tail, but his head is gone. And there’s no use in trying to remember what the head looked like because all traces of it are gone, plus it takes to much out of you to stare at it and imagine what might have been, so you hang that painting up and smile at the tail, and the body, and the feet, and the head is just, well, for all you know, it doesn’t exist.

That’s how God treats your sin, it doesn’t exist because Jesus’ blood was like the red paint that just blotted it out, and all God can see is you, without your sin.

If you’re saved, you know God forgives sins, and you know that the past should stay in the past, but I know that it’s hard to keep it there. I know it’s easy to bring it up, sometimes, because you just want something to think about before you go to bed, but instead of focusing so much on mistakes and past regrets or whatever else the past monster reminds you of, go read Isaiah 43, and when you get to verses 18-19, really consider that God may be using that empty, desert of your past, to bring you to something good. And when you go back to that isle in your brain where you store those past files,I hope that your file has been erased; I hope it’s been “blotted” out, and I hope that while you sit there, bewildered , you fall in love with God when you see that a new story is being written in place of the past, and this one, you never want to put down because instead of being filled with your tears and regret, its filled with rivers and hope, and something much, much more beautiful.