{The Desperate}

            
              There is a frightened child inside of each of us. There is a broken criminal, a grieving soul, a torn heart beating in every chest. All around you, mentally, there are castaways locked in stone cells. All around you there are cowering people who are crying from fear; silent people who have been screaming for too long for help and have finally lost their voice

                The voice of the desperate is a voice we can all understand, because we have all been desperate at some point. It is a cry that passes races, passes borders, passes ages. Everyone has been the blood-shot, wide-eyed victim with nowhere to go. Everyone has been through the nights when you wonder if you'll come out alright with the rising sun.

                And yet this voice, this voice we all know so well: it is the easiest one to ignore. The easiest one not to hear.

                Because we're selfish.

                And we don't want to be reminded what desperate looks like and what desperate sounds like. We were desperate once, and it was painful, and we don't want to hurt again. We don't want to remember the time we were lost.

                So we look away from those who are hurting now, as if they're some taboo substance. As if what they're going through is more shameful than what we went through. As if, somehow, they are sinning more than we sinned. As if they are less people because they've been desperate so long.

         We're less people because it's taken us this long to hear them.

                And what we don't seem to understand is that these desperate people are normal. They are the majority. But we've thwarted our view so much that we think they're the minority. We think happy  people like ourselves are the majority and our peaceful lives are more normal in the world.

                But they're not.

                There are hundreds of abortions performed every day. There are  thousands of people caught in slavery. One out of every 2 children live in a single-parent home. 45 people are murdered every day, (besides abortion.) Dieing alone. Living alone. Living invisible lives. Living lives shaped by immense grief.

            And this is normal to so many people. This is what they're living in. This is what they're living with. This is who they are. 

            This is what has molded them.

            And they're crying. The tears are breaking away their heart because no one is willing to bend down to where they are lying to lift them up. No one is willing to show them the love of God because we haven't taught our knees to bend that much or our neck to stoop that low.

            Because we think that we're being good Christians by staying away from these things. We think that God has commanded us to have nothing to do with these sins. But, actually, he's commanded  us not to sin in these areas ourselves. But He never said that we shouldn't help those caught in them.

            And we're just being down-right selfish to say otherwise.

            Jesus dined with a tax-collector. He spoke with an adulteress. He encountered the demon-possessed. He worked his will through redeemed murderers. He was crucified between two criminals.

            Jesus had everything to do with the desperate.

            In Luke 18:35-42 there is a story of a blind beggar sitting by the side of the road. When this man hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, he cries out that the Lord would have mercy on him, because this man is desperate. He is desperate to be released from his blindness that has shaped his life.

            Jesus is in a crowd in the street at this time. I see these people as the ones who are in some way following this King of Nazareth. This is the general crowd which has heard his teachings and seen his miracles or at least heard of them. And yet when they hear this blind beggar calling out,

            they silence him.

            Verse 39:And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.

           

            Sometimes I think we are that crowd, professing to follow Jesus, but silencing the very ones for which he has come to show mercy. We have read his words and have learned of this majestic Father who mercifully reached down and brought us to life while we were dead in desperation.

            But we see the desperate ones around us, and we walk on. We silence them.

            They're not good enough for us to associate with. They are a part of taboo lives that good Christians have nothing to do with.

            We disregard the dirt in the world around us, shake the dust from our clothes, turn our eyes politely, and walk on by. Walk on to our gold-gilded church buildings to read from our new Bibles and wear our silk suits. To impress us. To impress those around us. To make some statement that we are the good ones.

            But we're selfish. We're disgustingly selfish.

            Because we have been given mercy boundless and free, even we when were desperate. And to whom much is given, much is required.

           

            The desperate need love. They need the mercy and grace of those who say they're been saved by a loving God. We need to stop turning up our holy noses. If we say we are followers of Christ, then we need to walk where he walked.

            And he walked among the loveless so he could show his love.

            You once stunk as bad as they. You once screamed as loud as they. You were once them.  

 And Jesus did not pass by you.

I am not discrediting God's sovereign work, and the fact that He can save without man's work on earth. He does not have to work through us to save the desperate. But he chooses to work through us for His glory, and He has commanded us to live lives reflecting the love he has shown us.

We are loving Christ when we love the broken, and his purposes are worked through us when we obey his call to reach out to the least of these. For whatever we have done unto them people, we have done unto Christ.