See

Saw this video (click the words) today through another adoptive parent.  It broke my heart on so many levels- for the children being orphaned, the parents who desperately feel this is their only choice, for a country so broken. 

This world needs Jesus.

There are so many hurting people.  Adoption, orphan care, and China are things that God has put on our family's heart at this time.  Children desperately need families for so many reasons.  But there are broken people everywhere who have never heard the name of Jesus.  

Does this burden us?  Does it bother us that halfway around the world people are abandoning babies on the side of the road because they have no way to support or care for them?  Does it bother us that crime rates in most cities in America are sky rocketing, in large part to the absence of parents, specifically father figures, to lead families?  Does it bother us that right now in the Middle East Christians are dying gruesome deaths at the hands of extremists?  Does it bother us that NC is one of the top 8 states for human trafficking? Or that our neighbor/coworker has never once been invited to church?  Not just make us uncomfortable or thankful it's not us, but does it burden us to move and be the hands and feet of Christ to these people?

If it doesn't, it should.

Because it bothers our God.

I'll be the first to admit that I have walked around as a Christian, completely blinded to the needs of those around me.  I felt no burden, and on some level believed the Christian life was about being as comfortable and happy as possible.  Get a great job, find the right spouse, have kids and keep climbing up that ladder towards the American Dream.  All my prayers seemed to focus on me- on health, wealth, and success for me and my friends/family.

But one day the Holy Spirit dropped the scales from my eyes.  And gave me a desire to love what God loves and to be broken for the things that break God's heart.  Instead of prayers for safety I prayed to be burdened. Like the Hillsong lyrics:

"Break my heart for what breaks yours.  Everything I am for your Kingdom's cause." 

And suddenly it was as if I could finally see.  And I began to understand what Jesus meant when he said his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  Because we should be bothered by a world that is broken, that doesn't know Jesus.  That is heavy.  But we don't have to carry it alone...he puts his love in us and carries our broken bodies every step of the way.  We fail, but he doesn't.  He gives all we ever need to take each step of obedience and share the Gospel with a hurting world.  He makes joy out of the suffering, for His glory. 

Lord, open our eyes!

I want those people dropping off babies in China to know a God who offers mercy, forgiveness and grace.

I long for those abandoned babies to know they are fearfully and wonderfully made. That the God who loves and created them has a plan to redeem their lives.

I want a broken world to know Jesus.  The news is too good to keep to ourselves.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see."