It happened again. It was all I could do to push down the tears, hold myself together, and not start weeping as my heart felt the weight of the suffering that surrounded me. Our team was leading the vespers service at the children’s home up the street, as scheduled last Monday. And I have thankfully not grown numb to the suffering of these little ones. I don’t think I have gone there yet and not found myself screaming inside, because of the misery I have seen. And this is good.
1 John 3:17 exhorts, “whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” Apart from God’s love abiding within and radiating hope, the human heart can’t handle the hopelessness that arises from seeing need, so it shuts up to it. Yet, this is key to love: to allow your heart to feel the pain and suffering of others. And this is the grace of the gospel: to see hope in the midst of the hopelessness you encounter in that place.
I have again been reminded lately how last year after 3 months of intensively studying the plight of orphans and foster children (American orphans), the Lord rerouted my path. I was planning on continuing to serve in the Orphan Justice Department as my full time service on the base. The Lord then made it clear that I was not to do as I had planned. He spoke very clearly that this was a season I was to give myself in a focused way to the supernatural justice of the Kingdom that can only come forth when a human being enters into extravagant worship, like what is going on around the throne right now. When this reality of heaven touches earth, heaven responds, angels and demons move, and Jesus breaks in with justice in a way that far surpasses anything I am capable of. This is the kind of justice this world needs. It’s the only hope for such staggering hopelessness in our nation’s foster system. It’s the only thing that will set millions of orphans free from the self-loathing, depression, oppression, and insanity they have come under.
I believe that one day God will have me participate in rescuing orphans in a “more practical” way (perhaps “hands on” is a better definition). Yet, I know that if the fullness of what He desires for that day is to come forth, He has made it clear that the MOST PRACTICAL thing I can do today is to tarry in the place of extravagant worship, contending for a personal and corporate endowment of power that will break the back of the oppressor (Isaiah 61).
He has said to let this agony of feeling these children’s pain and my own barrenness to do anything about it propel me into the place of prayer and worship, this place of singing and dancing upon injustice, as my primary form of ministry and work of justice in this season. And He has promised that from that place of extreme abiding, He will allow me to bear much fruit. What’s more, He has promised that that fruit will remain: the deep cry of my heart. From tasting the bitter right now, He will bring forth an abundance of sweet fruit and cause me to taste and see that He is good!
