In this day of instant information, gratification, and communication; instant access, service, and success; rapid provision, transit, and delivery; fast decisions, energy, and food; virtual meetings,transactions, and relationships; ... AND all sold to us as a way to make our lives better (and in many ways it does but); those who are handicapped by technological disconnect, assumption, time and circumstance will be a constraint to the success of this “get it now”- “Driven to Success” society.
Survival of the fittest is not just an evolutionary theory, it has become a dogma and the rule of thumb for personal and interpersonal valuation. "Can't keep up? Get left behind!" No one has time for the personal pain of another individual unless they are strategically critical to the over-riding success of the masses. For example ...“Who needs unwanted and untimely pregnancies, handicapped children, and the continual drain on normal society's resources caused by the critically ill and the failing health of the elderly” as hissed by Mr. “B”. “And how about the useless, the slow learner, the unproductive laborer, and the hopelessly poor?” "Don't forget the religiously intolerant and non-conformist?"
Psalm 43:5 “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
Years ago, just prior to my Dad's “Home-going”, I tried to carry encouragement to my Dad as he lay in discomfort after surgery to remove cancerous brain tumors. When I walked in the hospital room and heard Dad's quiet but repetitious moans; God's Word took me to the verse above as it calmly washed through my soul to Dad as a song. As I began to sing the song, I watched as Dad tried to hum along with the melody. As little pearl like tears, beaded up and dropped from the corner of his eyes (and mine), my prayer for Dad was that he would know that he was loved, and that he still was of great value to his family, his friends and his God. Just as the message of Christ carried hope to my Dad, the message of Christ is critical to the hope of an individual and a nation. Fear not to carry His hope into your life and live that hope loudly!
Isaiah 61:1 – This was read by Jesus in the synagogue ... “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me; because the LORD hath anointed Me to preach the good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; ...(It continues on through verse 3) … The underlying truth is … Jesus is there for the abandoned and downcast, and we should be too.
I have a sneaking suspicion that God is “in the midst” of the encouragement of the downcast. He draws close to those that we abandon; and to withdraw from them means that we miss the blessing of the fullness of His encouragement. In my years of ministering I have found that God gives special access to the fullness of His Spirit to encourage those who are discounted, marked down and written off.
I truly feel that His spirit is grieved by many of us today, who are in the habit of cursing castaways and throwing away the strangers and misfits, instead of making a viable connection via our own brokenness. Do you realize the obscenity of the broken cursing the broken? {It was there on the Day Christ died. Remember the cursing malefactors on the other two crosses? … The Man in the middle never cursed back, but He was there to bless anyone who decided to see with the heart instead of the eye}.
Have we as believers wandered so far from our broken need for the Cross, that we can transcend to a lifestyle of negligence toward other broken ones for whom Christ died? What if at the end of our days, we received comfort only in proportion to the comfort whereby we comforted the broken ones? Where would our comfort be?
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40 … Done What? Life in Christ is a constant connecting of our brokenness in Christ to needs of others to bring healing via the message of Christ.
Oh, to Treat the broken as we would treat Jesus ... don't miss the daily opportunity!
HLFA,
Jeff