GIVE

Callous love.

July 4, 2010 by Chad

There’s this weird battle being waged near my heart. It’s passion versus apathy. I do not understand it, and to say it frustrates me would be a gross understatement.

Though I am no doctor or scientist, or even a college graduate for that matter, I am thoroughly convinced that something horrible has happened to the human heart over the last 40 years. Somehow it’s been rewired, and it no longer functions as it should. This rewiring I speak of cannot be explained through medical terminology, because, as I said earlier, I am no doctor and have not the intellectual capacity to explain to you how this rewiring would work.

Here’s the thing though; this rewiring of the heart has caused it to function irregularly. And this irregularity that I speak of is that it focuses only on us. We only think of ourselves, and only feel when we feel sorry for ourselves, or feel like we want something for ourselves. When we see people in need - a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk, or a homeless woman hungry on the side of the road, our heart does not feel. It’s been rewired, as I explained earlier. And I feel like the perpetrator is APATHY. Apathy has rewired our hearts, and caused us not to feel when we should feel. Not to show compassion or feel compassionate when we should. Our heart doesn’t know how to react to the fact that 3,500,000 men, women, and children are homeless in America. So it doesn’t feel anything.

Now obviously I am not speaking of the physical heart, but the emotional heart. The one that breaks when the girl you’re in love with starts dating your brother. And the one that feels gladness when you let an elderly woman cut in front of you at McDonald’s.

And that apathy is trying to rewire my heart. Let me tell you, I spent years tearing away the wires in my heart. I realized in my early 20’s that I didn’t care about anything but myself, and realized that Jesus probably wasn’t fond of that thinking, since one of His greatest commandments was to love my neighbor as myself. The more I grew in my relationship with Christ, the more wires he tore away from my heart, allowing me to feel the pain of those in need and giving me the ability to show compassion. And now apathy is trying to operate once again.

I think that this sort of thing probably happens more often than not, and I am absolutely sure it’s the enemy at work, trying to disarm our ability to be Jesus to those who are in need. I’ve found that the only way to fight off this enemy is to draw near to the Lord, and beg Him to break your heart again for the things that break His heart. It’s one of those dangerous prayers that you might be nervous to pray, because having a broken heart isn’t exactly on anyone’s top 10 list, but I think it’s needed, or else we will not feel for our homeless, hungry, and hopeless brothers scattered across the globe.

Draw near to the Lord tonight. Beg for a heart that feels.