Burning Vapor

Have you seen one of those ‘in your face’ orphan videos on Facebook yet?  If not, you apparently do not have the same group of friends as I do.  I have even promoted some of them on my own Facebook.  You know the ones I’m talking about right.  The ones that talk about you being a fat, lazy, heartless, blind, busy, American Christian?  Seriously.

I had a Facebook Friend, Stephen Cruver, whom I have never met in real life before, challenge me on my reposting of one of those videos.  Maybe his issue had more to deal with than my words associated with the video.  It was an in-your-face challenge to preaching pastors.  Surprisingly enough I didn’t get any responses from said targets.  But Stephen’s challenge on it has plagued me and a few days ago I had an epiphany.

We may not love the people we are challenging to adopt or support orphans.  Not really.  We love the orphan.  And we quote many passages about the fatherless or any other verse/quote that we can use to gain some leverage.  But all too often I fear that we have lost sight of the forest for the sake of the trees.

I know and see people on Facebook, blogs, forums who bash others, guilt others, bombard others and it’s loveless.  We search for slap-in-the-face quotes and we judge the way others live their lives and it’s Christless.  We go to conferences and stroke each others egos, but we do very little to love those we are trying to awake.

Save your justifications, I have used them myself.  My concern is simply this.  I fear that we are becoming a community that is an empty, irritating noise that is a blight on Jesus.  We see people’s money or their inactivity and we sit in judgment on them.  We have no idea of what is going on in their lives, but they are just not doing as much as I am and they have ‘so much potential’.

Romans 12:9 and following is a great passage that points out the balance that must be struck in loving and honoring one another and working hard to take care of those in need.  It will do me good to soak in that passage and it may do you some good as well.

I confess that I have been that judgmental person who has chosen to ‘love the orphan’ while crushing the heads and hearts of my brothers and sisters.  I love the orphan, and my brothers and sisters, and those that do not yet know Jesus.  I fear I have become a mosquito, an empty irritating noise that has a sharp sting.