"Once there was a people who surveyed the resources of the world and said to each other: “How can we be sure that we will have enough in hard times? We want to survive whatever happens. Let us start collecting food, materials, and knowledge so that we are safe and secure when a crisis occurs.” So they started hoarding, so much and so eagerly that the other peoples protested and said: “You have so much more than you need, while we don’t have enough to survive. Give us part of your wealth!” But the fearful hoarders said: “No, no, we need to keep this in case of an emergency, in case things go bad for us too, in case our lives are threatened.” But the others said: “We are dying now, please give us food and materials and knowledge to survive. We can’t wait . . . we need it now!” Then the fearful hoarders became even more fearful, since they became afraid that the poor and hungry attack them. So they said to one another: “Let us build walls around our wealth so that no stranger can take it from us.” They started erecting walls so high that they could not even see anymore whether their enemies were outside the walls or not! As their fear increased they told each other: “Our enemies have become so numerous that they may be able to tear down our walls. Our walls are not strong enough to keep them away. We need to put bombs at the top of the walls so that nobody will dare to even come close to us.” But instead of feeling safe and secure behind their armed walls they found themselves trapped in the prison they had built with their own fear. They even became afraid of their own bombs, wondering if they might harm themselves more than their enemy. And gradually they realized their fear of death had brought them closer to it."When I first read this I thought of our hearts. We are afraid of being hurt so instead of loving others caring for them or just being with them in their place of pain, we ignore it. We hope if we act like we didn't see it then God won't hold us accountable for saying "no" to the opportunity to be Him to them. I think a lot of this stuff about the way we guard our hearts we do, subconsciously and we need to pray that God gives us the courage to step beyond that.
Isaiah 52:3 describes Jesus as "a man of suffering, and familiar with pain." When I read that it struck me that Jesus made himself vulnerable to feel the pain of others to allow himself to be moved by compassion for others. Why do we fear compassion? I think we fear it because it moves us to action and sometimes it's nice to stay in our comfy bed in our comfy pajamas and we don't want to get up and do something. But if we want to have the heart of Jesus - a man of compassion who suffered with the suffering and hurt because of it - we HAVE to open our hearts to "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." (Romans 12:15 NIV) That means no just when it's socially respectable to mourn, but EVEN when you come across that person you know is wearing a mask of "everything's ok" but you can tell, nothing's ok. Listen, pray, BE THERE. It means when a kid comes to your door raising money for something and he's obviously discouraged by the lack of generosity, allow yourself to be moved to compassion and give up your coffee tomorrow and buy something or make a donation.
That's the second thing I go from this story, first I thought of the show about disaster prepping and the ridiculous amount of money people put into building a bunker and stock piling food they may be more organized but there's nothing different between them and the hoarders. Both are driven by fear to keep, keep, keep. There's no generosity. There's no giving. They are held captive by fear. If we want to live like Jesus, according to Matthew 5, we have to be generous and gracious. I do't see either of these qualities in hoarding. Now, maybe I don't hoard in either of those ways, but I eat out a lot more then I should. I could work to spend less on food and then have more to give away. I have BAGS of clothes in my closet that don't fit anymore, not even close. I keep them just in case. Just in case means I'm afraid Jesus won't take care of me when something happens.
My project this week: clean out my closet and give away all of my just in case clothes. Project number 2: put some cash in small bills in my wallet so when the kid does come to my door, or there's a homeless man sitting outside my church, I have money to give. I won't have an excuse. I refuse to live in captivity to fear!
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