Hurt People. (HPHP/LPLP - Part 1)

Quite some time ago (specifically July 8th) I posted a blog titled, Loved People, Love People. Hurt People, Hurt People (HERE). I originally intended for it to be the only posting on that subject, but a couple days later I (and I mean that God impressed on my heart) decided it would be the last (created first like in the Star Wars Saga) of a series of 5 posts. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to put it together until this morning after a friend posted a verse from Ecclesiastes 4:1. That verse broke my heart and sealed this post.

The last few months God has been wrecking my heart about some very specific stuff, culminating in a Holy Spirit induced melt down last Thursday morning. Some great conversations and amazing appointments came from submitting to what I strongly felt God telling me to do. In the coming weeks I’ll share what that stuff was, but for now…I’m going to watch God unfold it. What I can tell you is this…man does God want us to love the hurting and man are there a lot of hurting people out there to love.

Ecc 4:1 says, “Again, I observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. The oppressors have great power, and their victims are helpless.”

I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. There are SO many people that are hurting. I look around and see family after family ravaged and torn apart by divorce; children trapped in violent and vile situations; women told that they are worthless and useless, abused and mistreated, men trapped in their addictions to pornography, helpless to get out and incapable of leading their family; young men and women told that they’ll never amount to anything because of the part of town they live in and they are all helpless. They are bound by their oppressor, ensnared in the lie that there is no hope and it tears my heart to shreds.

As if all that isn’t heart wrenching enough, what about the other hurting people? What about the people that don’t even look like they’re hurting? The people that on the surface look like they have it all together, but deep down they are a mess. They are broken, rejected, torn apart by life and bitter against it. What about those people? The earlier mentioned group might be easier to spot on occasion, but how do you see the other group?

Sadly our culture has allowed us to become content with just showing up to church. If we do that, then we can check it off our “Christian To Do List” and go about our week feeling good about our “holiness.” But there is no commitment in that, ZERO! Just because you drug yourself out of bed at 8:30 to make the 10:00 service so you can get on with the rest of your day ISN’T commitment, it’s self righteous and self serving (key word SELF). The problem is that if we do anything more than that, if we get too close to people we may realize they are hurting or have issues. If that happens we may be obligated (maybe even compelled) to step outside of ourselves and give to that person. We may have to care about someone else and that takes away from our “me” time.

While we sit in our cozy homes, watching NFL ticket on or 50 inch flat screen, eating our coma inducing junk food, there is a world of hurt people literally right outside our doors. I’m not saying that you can’t have that stuff, but at what point does that stuff become pointless? At what point does the fact that people are hurting matter?

Here’s the bottom line, there are hurting people all around us…some sitting literally in the chair next to you. They are helpless victims in a world of oppressors. They are crying out, tears not always visible, but there nonetheless (sometimes those are the worst kind). Without Christ they are hopeless. Without hope, there is nothing.