What happens at Camp...

So I may not have gone to camp but this week I set aside and sanctified as special time with God. I have gone deeper in the word, have been fasting on more than one level, have been seeking God's face, and have been expecting Him to speak to me. He has and this is one of several things that I got from him this week. This was a song:

(Um, not mine, someone elses... just to clarify)

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Wasnt it far beyond my reach?
Give me your heart for the once forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

-Give Me Your Eyes
Brandon Heath
What If We

This is one of the main things God has been speaking to me about recently. Whether its from the pulpit at Church, my meetings with Ben, the songs I'm listening to on the radio, or simply the verse I'm reading in my devotions, there has been a common theme that God has been speaking to me recently. Loving people like he does.

I ride the bus. Through the years I have seen small children whose parents are drunk on the bus, letting them run around and fall down as teh bus lurches to stops. I have seen teenage mothers with three or four small chrildren trying to board the bus while their babies are crying and they're talking to their friends back at high school on their cells. I've seen young men who have thrown their lives away, giving in to drugs, sitting on the bus on the way to their box under the Hawethorn Bridge. And I have seen so many beautiful people with Down's Syndrome taking the trip from their house to McDonalds, trying so hard to live a normal life. I have seen so much pain, so much sorrow, and so many broken lives, that there is no way I coudl ever reach out to any of them. There are just too many and I just don't have enough time to help any of them.

So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I shut them out. Tried to ignore the hurt around me. I smiled when they looked up and made eye contact but that was it. And I felt my love, my compassion, drying up. And then it was gone.

But then today I was readng Mark. I read the story of how Jesus after doing great miracles and being very weary, went across the lake to the oterh side so that he and his deciples could get some rest. But then when they came to teh other side, Jesus saw the people had aticipated his move and had gathered there and so when he saw them he had compassion on them.

This is the essence of it. Jesus himself got weary from helping people and yet he still found compassion for the ones who needed him. I have come to realise that I might not be able to help all the people I encounter, but I can still have compassion, can still try and help as many as possible. The one thing I can't do is shut them out. Jesus didn't and neither can I.

So this is the thing that has been on my heart lately. I have decided that I want to help as many people as possible, though I'm not sure how yet. I'm thinking about world vision, and maybe helping out with one of Portland's homeless shelters, but I'm not sure which yet. If you guys have any ideas I'll gladly take them.