WHEN FACED WITH OVERWHELMING NEED
Like most suburbanites, I grew up living the sheltered life. To be sure, our family had its share of dysfunctionalities, but by and large, the world was good and it was easy to believe in the goodness of people and the fairness of life. My parents were still together, and they loved each other and their kids. My school was academically rigorous, structurally sound, and full of teachers and students that meant well and did good. My home was a quiet, safe, and clean place to sleep, study, and play, my neighborhood free from structural damage, abandoned houses, and sketchy people.
Now that I'm an adult, and I live in an urban environment, and am in general more clued into local and global affairs, that sheltered life, far from being the norm, represents for me this odd vortex of space and time that seems so out of place in my current worldview. Issues such as divorce, abuse, and war are no longer theoretical debate topics, but real-life issues that affect me and my friends. It is not a guarantee any more that my house won't be broken into, or that the children at the schools in my neighborhood will be sheltered from guns and drugs. I am more aware of political corruption, in City Hall downtown as well as dozens of governments worldwide.
I don't live in the 'burbs anymore, and I'm not a kid anymore. And life has lost some of that playful innocence that it once had. My wife and I, in our respective jobs, are faced with the collateral damage of parental neglect, drug abuse, and neighborhood violence. The more we care, the more it hurts; it is tempting, then, to not care at all.
I do not glamourize my childhood or the suburbs, nor do I demonize my current life or the city. But I do long for heaven, where everyone and everything is as a perfect and loving and just God would have it to be.
What to do til then? Some choices, all of which my heart has considered and given into in my twelve years in Philadelphia:
* Get out. Escape to a place where, granted there are none that are free from pain, but where there is less. Where you can count on public schools and sewer systems and local municipalities.
* Protect yourself. Accept that there are no safe places, devoid of the hurt that comes from being human. Don't stick your neck out to care for anyone. Guard your emotions vigilantly, and look out for number one. After all, that's a full-time occupation; who has time or spare emotional energy to look out for others?
* Recklessly care for others. Realize that life here on earth isn't lasting, but that it is prep for an eternal kingdom. Pour yourself out for others, seek justice vigorously, weep bitterly with those who suffer. Go to God for replenishment, and then put your heart on your sleeve and bleed for others.
So what have I chosen? It is a daily struggle, and on any given day I might choose one or more of the three options above. I feel that God is growing in me a desire for justice to be done, a dissatisfaction until it has been done. I resist this pull at times, for it is a commitment that is awfully steep and that requires a courage that I often don't have. I am learning how to care enough for others that it brings me to tears, but too often I am unwilling to care that much, or at all.
I am also trying to figure out how to take care of myself. I do not believe it is the Christian life to look out for number one, and to filter all of life through that kind of selfish perspective. No matter what noble things I do, if I am still the center of my existence, that means God is not. But while the Bible is clear that we are to regard others more highly than ourselves, I do not believe it is the Christian life to not regard ourselves at all. Constantly seeking to serve others can become its own idolatry, and so can tending to one's own heart exclusively. Better than both is to tend to one's own heart in a way that puts on a godly mindset, which is to serve and love others.
This is not intellectual wrestling for me. Daily, I must manage an overwhelming amount of deficits, pains, and injustices, in my own heart as well as in the world around me. I must make choices and priorities about how much to care, if at all, about how much of my heart to give to others and to situations. I can decide to flee or to stay, to guard my life or to pour it out for others.
Today, I read in my morning devotions where Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, and Jesus explains to Him what that means: that He will suffer and die, and that those who follow Him must daily take up their cross and lose their lives themselves. Whether we live in the city or the 'burbs, in relative comfort or in acute distress, let us not forget the daily decision we must make: to follow Jesus or to look out for number one.
Like most suburbanites, I grew up living the sheltered life. To be sure, our family had its share of dysfunctionalities, but by and large, the world was good and it was easy to believe in the goodness of people and the fairness of life. My parents were still together, and they loved each other and their kids. My school was academically rigorous, structurally sound, and full of teachers and students that meant well and did good. My home was a quiet, safe, and clean place to sleep, study, and play, my neighborhood free from structural damage, abandoned houses, and sketchy people.
Now that I'm an adult, and I live in an urban environment, and am in general more clued into local and global affairs, that sheltered life, far from being the norm, represents for me this odd vortex of space and time that seems so out of place in my current worldview. Issues such as divorce, abuse, and war are no longer theoretical debate topics, but real-life issues that affect me and my friends. It is not a guarantee any more that my house won't be broken into, or that the children at the schools in my neighborhood will be sheltered from guns and drugs. I am more aware of political corruption, in City Hall downtown as well as dozens of governments worldwide.
I don't live in the 'burbs anymore, and I'm not a kid anymore. And life has lost some of that playful innocence that it once had. My wife and I, in our respective jobs, are faced with the collateral damage of parental neglect, drug abuse, and neighborhood violence. The more we care, the more it hurts; it is tempting, then, to not care at all.
I do not glamourize my childhood or the suburbs, nor do I demonize my current life or the city. But I do long for heaven, where everyone and everything is as a perfect and loving and just God would have it to be.
What to do til then? Some choices, all of which my heart has considered and given into in my twelve years in Philadelphia:
* Get out. Escape to a place where, granted there are none that are free from pain, but where there is less. Where you can count on public schools and sewer systems and local municipalities.
* Protect yourself. Accept that there are no safe places, devoid of the hurt that comes from being human. Don't stick your neck out to care for anyone. Guard your emotions vigilantly, and look out for number one. After all, that's a full-time occupation; who has time or spare emotional energy to look out for others?
* Recklessly care for others. Realize that life here on earth isn't lasting, but that it is prep for an eternal kingdom. Pour yourself out for others, seek justice vigorously, weep bitterly with those who suffer. Go to God for replenishment, and then put your heart on your sleeve and bleed for others.
So what have I chosen? It is a daily struggle, and on any given day I might choose one or more of the three options above. I feel that God is growing in me a desire for justice to be done, a dissatisfaction until it has been done. I resist this pull at times, for it is a commitment that is awfully steep and that requires a courage that I often don't have. I am learning how to care enough for others that it brings me to tears, but too often I am unwilling to care that much, or at all.
I am also trying to figure out how to take care of myself. I do not believe it is the Christian life to look out for number one, and to filter all of life through that kind of selfish perspective. No matter what noble things I do, if I am still the center of my existence, that means God is not. But while the Bible is clear that we are to regard others more highly than ourselves, I do not believe it is the Christian life to not regard ourselves at all. Constantly seeking to serve others can become its own idolatry, and so can tending to one's own heart exclusively. Better than both is to tend to one's own heart in a way that puts on a godly mindset, which is to serve and love others.
This is not intellectual wrestling for me. Daily, I must manage an overwhelming amount of deficits, pains, and injustices, in my own heart as well as in the world around me. I must make choices and priorities about how much to care, if at all, about how much of my heart to give to others and to situations. I can decide to flee or to stay, to guard my life or to pour it out for others.
Today, I read in my morning devotions where Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, and Jesus explains to Him what that means: that He will suffer and die, and that those who follow Him must daily take up their cross and lose their lives themselves. Whether we live in the city or the 'burbs, in relative comfort or in acute distress, let us not forget the daily decision we must make: to follow Jesus or to look out for number one.
Comments