Has your heart grown cold?

It's early (never my favorite time of day) on a rainy morning in NE Oklahoma...the fields here are green, and the rain today is soft, and has a mantle of mist resting just above the verdant fields.  I have been scanning the news...I missed most of it yesterday due to a colossal headache, and would have been just as well to skip it this morning.

When you look at the headlines:  CIA in Libya, Possible Ground Troops to follow (another war with no moral justification, where our young will die in a land full of people who despise them....and before you say it's our duty to stop people from being butchered, I ask you this...where were we in Rwanda, or Sudan, or the Congo or a dozen other bloody fields of horror.  We're not there to help the people, we're there to secure the oil flows.  Kinda like the US is the Emperor in Dune, and we have to make sure the Spice flows.)...to gang shootings, a father on trial raping his two children under 6, flooding in Thailand, Christians butchered in Egypt, radiation levels rising.....I didn't see one good news story on the entire page.  I know there are good things happening, I also know news providers only have so much print space or video time alloted to give you the day's top stories...so they go with what seems like the most important, or what will get the most attention.  And that's usually the bad news.

I don't know about you, but it seems the bad news keeps getting worse.  Maybe, as some say, it's because we live in a more connected world, thus we hear news faster from further away.  I think it's more than that though...I think we are living in a society where we commit more atrocities against each other.  The way in which we treat our neighbors has, by and large, gotten shoddier, less connected.  When we lose our sense of being connected to one another, it's easier to view those around us as having less value, and from that point, as someone who can be used, exploited, killed.  The Bible says: 

"and because of the abounding of the lawlessness, the love of the many shall become cold;" (Matthew 24:12) 

I profess, I like my old Bible's translation better, it says "the hearts of men shall grow cold"...

Is that not what is happening?  As society is becoming more violent, as we treat each other with less care, as we demonize those who we do not agree with (politicians are great at this!)...we see the love in our hearts for our fellow human beings growing colder and colder.  I read once an interview where someone was asked what they would do if they saw a homeless person begging, and their response was "pass them by or go to the other side of the street.  Their problem is not mine."

Their problem is not mine. Hmm.  Kind of a modern day answer that echoes of Cain "What am I, my brother's keeper?"

I would say to the person interviewed, that yes, their problem is yours.  Because the homeless person on the street is of your family, and but for the Grace of God, there you could be.  Even if you have nothing to give that is of tangible value (i.e., money, food), you can give them the gift of dignity by looking them in the eye and smiling, or saying hello.  You can treat them as a person.  You don't have to let your heart grow cold, you can stoke it with the fire of kindness and compassion.

The verse quoted above was spoken by Christ, when He was giving a list of the signs that would foretell His second coming.  Now, I'm not saying Jesus is returning today (but that would be awesome!) or tomorrow, or ten years from now, or a 100 years, I don't know when that blessed day will be.  But He told us to watch for it, and He gave us signs.  The groaning of the earth (earthquakes, which Christ compared to a woman giving birth, her birthing pains getting stronger and coming closer and closer in time to one another), wars and rumors of wars....there are more signs (go read Matthew chap 24, it's a fascinating chapter)...and that the hearts of men, the love of mankind for one another, would grow cold.  

Now, I don't know when Christ will return, and don't believe any church or group who tells you when they would know, Christ said about His return " No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father". Matt 24:36.  So groups that tell you they know...are lying.  But I know I am supposed to be on watch for it, and to live as if it could happen at any time.  I think part of that then is to make sure the love in my heart for others does not grow cold, I am to keep the fire kindled.  To see the homeless man as someone who deserves dignity, to show kindness to the hurt, to forgive those I want to lash back at.  I cannot stop society at large from disconnecting to each other, from seeing people as commodities, but I can choose to be different.

The world today can be scary.  Headlines tell us that things are going from bad to worse, and that you can't trust the people who live next door.  That war is looming, food prices are soaring, gangs are out of control and a dozen other dire banners wait to catch our eyes.  And yes, it is a world we should walk in with some caution and keep our eyes open in.  But we who follow Christ need not live in fear and dread, for we've got the Book, and we know how the story ends.  What we need to worry about is if we live our role in the story the best we can....and did we live with love in our hearts?