MARTYR COMPLEX

There is so much pain in life - just in our personal lives and inner circles. Then we also have the pain of the world, flooding to and through our minds and homes through the news and social media.
 
With so much need and inequity just down the street, and across the globe, how can we find peace and capacity to enjoy even a quiet place, a safe moment, a comforting, hot beverage? There is always someone else in arm's reach who needs it more...
 
We carry guilt. We do. Something in us knows guilt cannot rule, but cannot - should not - either be dispelled completely. We need our peace and provision, but we also need our souls to be intact, to feel for others.
 
Two insights for us from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
 
Jesus was a 'man of sorrows' (Is 53:4), but he was a man of great peace. He 'stayed his mind on the Lord' (Is 26:3), and kept in step with the Father. (John 5:19; Gal 5:25) One moment that impacts me - liberates me - was when Jesus was overcome with 'compassion' for the needs of people around him, seeing and feeling that they were 'helpless and harassed' and 'sheep without a shepherd.' (Mt 9:36) And in this moment of intense emotion Jesus turns to his disciples and rather than admonishing them to action, he directs their attention to the Father. He says, 'Pray, therefore, to the Lord of the harvest, to send out workers.'
 
This upward focus is essential, and always the calibrator of our lateral focus. Remember, Jesus told us the most important commandment was to love God, and secondly to love others. Our love for self and others will come to and through us - with perfect peace - as we hold God as our first love and focus.
 
Secondly, God lives in perfect peace even with disparities in this life, and complete disparity in the afterlife (Heaven/Hell). This is not sanction for 'denial' or turning a blind eye to the pains and needs of our generation, but it does tell us that there is a place of spiritual peace that runs deep, is eternal, is available to us, and is beyond our 'understanding'. (Phil 4:6-7)
 
Do you want this peace? Do you want to be able to know peace, even in a storm, or amidst poverty and brokenness? This is where we need God, through Jesus, to open a road before us, and begin to pour into us, work into us (cf Mk 8:22-26), a new heart and new spirit. (Ez 36:26) This is a road with increasing light and increasing experience. (cf Pr 4:18) This is a process, and God's way. He calls us to believe and walk and seek and sacrifice and 'strive to enter that rest'. (Heb 4:11).
 
It is not a good-works road, but a faith-work road. It is real, and completely rewarding. God, through his Word, will often give the identity, the name, at the end of living that name. (Rev 2:17)
 
Onward, soldier of redemption, and keep your eyes on the prize always! (cf Heb 12:2; Isaiah 26:3)