As the wall crumbles

Man, it is easier to care about people through working on the big-picture issues, the root causes of injustice and pain...to go to work and work hard and not have to actually deal with the faces of actual hurting people. This is my tendency.

But in this timely season of Lent, God is using a couple different situations to bring me lower with Him, to the dust, to the brokenness, to the people I say I care about and work for....and He is asking me if I am wiling to give up power, dreams, control and truly love with my whole heart...asking me if I am willing to truly walk throughout life with those I am called to love, to sacrifice whatever He asks of me to love others deeper, to let my heart be broken fully as His is. It is so hard to be completely willing, to open our hearts to care and love as God asks of us - it is much easier to love to an extent, to care about and work for the hurting....but guard our hearts a bit and not let ourselves enter fully into relationship. Because it hurts and it's hard and it's exhausting....I have felt myself wrestling with God on this so much the past couple years. I feel myself love and care for them and it's HARD and I just want a neat answer for how I can solve their problems and the problems of the world and be done with it.

But that's not what God asks of us - He asks us to BE LIKE HIM, loving others fiercely and with fire and letting our hearts be poured out, even if it means they get broken a bit (or a lot) in the process. There is definitely a place for the big-vision ideas and plans and jobs - they are a necessary part of the work God has called many of us to here in America. I still feel called to that myself. But if we are using those big things to prevent us from seeing the small - to prevent us from being brought low with Christ and loving face to face....then we are wrong. We are all called to love fully as Christ loved, trusting Him in a deeper way and letting Him bring us out of our comfort zones and neat boundaries...and into more of His fullness and glory.