Now what?

What do we do now, now that our hands-off approach isn't sitting well with us anymore, when it doesn't seem like it's enough?

This mask-wearing, works-based mentality, surface religion we've been raised in tells us to feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, visit prisoners in jail; like items to tick off on a checklist for our own righteousness.  It's easy to separate the humanity from the generalizations, to keep it all impersonal and separate from our real lives.

But what do we do when the nameless and faceless hungry, homeless, naked and prisoners in our midst are now our friends, people we have genuine relationships with, and care deeply about?

     People.  Who have lived real lives, with ups and downs, successes and setbacks, fears and victories.  Just like us.
     People.  With faces you remember after you part ways, a name, a recognizable voice, and hands that have worked right along side yours.  Just like us.
     People.  With smiles that remove the years from faces, with laughter that lightens the room, who've cried real tears, who've experienced fear, insecurity, and judgement. Just like us.

When we "serve" those on our list who have fit the bill of scriptural need, we move on with our lives, feeling a bit more righteous because we're following the rules laid out before us as followers of Christ, thinking we're "being the light", giving to those in need, and "blessing" others.

What if, by treating people in need as something we need to do, we're the ones missing out?

What if, in our quest to make Christianity a list of rules to follow, we miss the fine print, the meat of the New Testament, the heart of what makes us followers of Christ?
     We call ourselves blessed because we have so much...stuff, or we call ourselves blessed because God's answering our self-centered prayers, or we call ourselves blessed because everything seems to be going our way, or we even call ourselves blessed when we help more and more people.
     That word "blessed" even pisses me off, because we use it to describe every good thing in our life.

What if the people who are truly blessed are the ones we look down our noses at, the ones who are in the middle of strife, the ones who are suffering, the ones who take our assistance not with happy hearts, but because they know it's all they can do; knowing that we are just as lost as they are - and that they're the only ones who recognize it, because that realization doesn't come until we take the mask off.

We're all familiar with the Sermon on the Mount; yet refuse to change our perspective of it, because it's really hard to shift our focus from ourselves.

What if they're the blessed ones, and we're not?

Who's the one in need now?

Ruins

It's where he finds us...

We follow our hearts... chasing what we think leads to happiness
We follow the crowds... in order to stay relevant, (or stay under the radar)
We follow expectation laid upon us... unable to break free, or even declare ourselves "me"
We follow advice from family & friends... people who "know" us, or what's "best" for us
We follow what we think we want... every want, wish, and whim
We go where we think we're supposed to be... or expected, or suggested.

It's where we find ourselves:

Wandering...

     Lost...

          Afraid...

               Disillusioned...

                    Not sated by any of what we've done.

We stop.  Look around. Become aware of the loss of any sense of control in or over our lives.

It's in the devastation of death

...the crumbling of all we thought we knew

...the ruins of what we've made of our lives.

It's where we don't even have the strength or the power to look forward anymore, to look up.

It's there... where we find our connection to something greater than we are.

That's where He finds us.