Make-believe

      Last Friday night I watched a movie about the WWII Holocaust:  "Life is Beautiful."  It is so sad and so not sad all at the same time.  Sometimes I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!  It was interesting how Guido's irrepressibility changed as his naivete morphed into a grim grasp of reality.  Yet he never gave in for the sake of his son, and I couldn't help but admire his stamina and his resourcefulness. 
     Over the course of the film, I couldn't help but wonder how much we Westerners shut our eyes to what's going on in the world--what's going on in our very backyards.  I wonder how many stories we fabricate--not only for our children but for ourselves!--to explain away the horrors happening around us... slavery, abortion, abuse, gangs, the sex trade, murder...
     Stories are ok for children, I suppose.  My heart hurts with the hurting child's.  But as adults we need to face our problems and climb our mountains.  We as people are the ones who bring in these horrible regimes, we as people are the ones who must take responsibility to change them.

     A make-believe world proffers peaceful complacency.  But it doesn't satisfy God's call for justice and action--“Keep justice, and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed" (Isaiah 56:1).  And it doesn't change what is reality for many people. 

     It is easy to view the Nazi concentration camps as an unequalled epitome of cruelty and inhumanity.  And yet people now suffer just as much, or perhaps more, in North Korea, China, the Middle East...  These victims are all fellow humans, and usually our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as well.  
     ...But do you know what the saddest part of all this is?  We don't even care enough to fabricate stories about them to placate our consciences.  We just ignore them.
     Lord, give me a heart for justice that mirrors your heart.  Give me the vision to see clearly and the courage to act on it.  


"So you, by the help of your God, return; observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually."  Hosea 12:6