An Inexcusable Heartache

I want to change the world.

No, I am not disillusioned. No, I am not prideful in making that statement. No, I am not being unrealistic when I state that this world needs the love of Jesus Christ to change it... and I want to be one of the ones who brings it to them.

I am restless. A "holy dissatisfaction", some call it. I simply call it a heartache... because my heart aches. How can it be that 143 million children have no mother or father and no one who holds them in their arms and tells them that they are loved? How can it be that three billion people on the face of this same planet that I stand on right now have never heard even the NAME of Jesus before?

How can it be that millions proclaim to be Christians and how can it be that the majority of them live in this blessed country that we live in, with all the resources we could ever ask for, and yet the facts listed above still stand?

If every Christian man and woman, boy and girl, were obedient to the call of Christ on their lives - whatever that may be or in whatever form that may be in - I do believe that there would not be 143 million orphans. I do believe that there would not be three billion people who have never heard the Name of Jesus before.

Why do I believe that?

Because Jesus has sent us out.

He has sent us out.

I can have an excuse and I can deny what I just stated above if I were ignorant to the truths in the Bible. However, I am now held responsible because I have read such verses as these:

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves."
-Luke 10:2-3

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted from the world."
-James 1:27

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me."
-Luke 9:23

"To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps."
-1 Peter 2:21

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
-Matthew 28:19-20

I am responsible now. I now have no excuse. I have held the hands of orphans; I have seen skinny, malnourished women sitting on the side of the streets because they have not eaten in weeks; I have watched as babies bathe in buckets of muddy water because they have no clean water to bathe in; I have held a baby in my arms who I am not sure today if she is still nourished or even alive; I have sang songs of praise to God with 200 children who go to sleep at night with empty stomachs, without a bed or a pillow... and they are some of the most joyful children I have ever met; I have cried tears of brokenness over leaving behind countries that the Lord has taken me to, to fall in love with and share His love with... I have hugged children "see you later" with tears welling up in my eyes and my heart breaking inside of me... And I do not want any of this to have been in vain.

No, I am now held responsible because I have held them in my own arms, I have seen them with my own eyes, I have smelled the trash and the garbage along the streets, I have heard the wailing of children who are hungry, I have wept over all that is yet to be done and what little is now being done.

It is an agony - a pure tragedy - that we in America are so blessed by God and yet we are doing so little to reach out to those in the world who He has called us to love, who He has called us to share Him with.

And, of course, I am not exempt from this. I am one of them and yet the greatest tragedy of all is that I am held more responsible than any American who has never seen what I have seen or who has never read the verses in God's infallible Word that I have read.

And I do not want to just stand by my whole life in inexcusable ignorance that will end in shame when I stand before my Savior. I do not want that. And yet the selfishness of this nation, the selfishness of Christians, and most of all the selfishness of ME.... can steal my heart away from all of His purposes into a life of self-centeredness based on decisions of what I want, of what I think I need, of what will make me feel good...

NO! That is a tragedy.

He and His Kingdom purposes are all that matter in this life. I am sure of it. I am absolutely sure of it because nothing in all the world can satisfy like the love of Jesus Christ... and it must be shared with those who have never heard of it. It must be shared.

It MUST be shared.

I have a heartache... and the hardest part of all is that I have no excuse.