It’s happening! I love it when a plan comes together!
Driving around yesterday, running a few errands, not less than three times did I happen upon someone, one tired looking older man and two teenagers to be precise, and I found my soul drawn to them in a warm and specific compassion. I could not begin to say how many people I saw here and there, but those three drew my attention and a significant, unmistakable kindling of love toward them, strangers though they were.
Most of us have experienced something like that at the sight of a bent old woman, pushing a cart with all her earthly belongings in it, or a young person, perhaps tatted and pierced and Goth-ed beyond the pale of any healthy adorning. Obviously we aren’t speaking of generational bias but of those instances where through poverty, loneliness, or cultural extremes, we hear a cry for help.
Yesterday seemed to me a resurgence of compassion as I drove along, and my heart was flooded with love for those three. My intercessions were spontaneous and sincere, deep and authentic, and my soul rejoiced even while it ached for my three new, unnamed, D.L.F.s.
These ten days of praying more fervently for those I love has increased love! I must tell you, and I’m sure you will know just what I mean, the love I felt for those three was not completely comfortable. It wasn’t warm/fuzzy. There was a grief in those brief moments of loving and caring, there was a desperation in my heart as I lifted them up to the Lord’s compassion, and no small amount of pain. I can feel it now as I recount those moments to you.
Will I put them on my list? Probably not, but sometimes I do remember and mention all those I’ve prayed for en route in the past. Fortunately, the Lord knew their names then and sees them now, hundreds of men, women, and children over the years. At times I ask Him to remember them and to bless and keep them … as if He could forget!
I mentioned that I am about to start again, praying through the Psalms and into Isaiah and perhaps beyond for my Desperate Little Friends. I saw last time that certain Scriptures stirred my heart on behalf of nations, particularly my own, and certainly for various circumstances and people groups … I have a heart for those imprisoned, separated from the love they need and the families that need them, some justly and some unjustly convicted. My heart yearns, too, to see young men begin to fight the real battles of their age, men and boys who will fight dragons and demons all day long on video games while their hearts and their families suffer defeat. Those compassions have already been set ablaze!
What stirs your heart to prayerful action? Share that with us today, if you will. Have you begun to care more deeply, and have you noticed a change?
The Good Samaritan, Aime’ Morot,
Wikipedia, by permission, death of the artist (1913)