Are you willing to ask god to open your eyes to the pain of others?

​I hate it when Bob Goff - or anyone really with credibility - makes an assertion like "humble people pray for God to open their eyes to the pain of people around them."

I hate it because once I read an assertion like that, the world releases a force that stops me and forces me to hear a question like, "when is the last time you stopped and asked God to open your eyes to the pain of the people around you?"

Tic - toc - tic - toc: I'm waiting, says the world.....

I'm having a hard time answering, world. If I'm being honest, a majority of my prayers are focused on me opening God's eyes to my pain and to my world, not someone else's.

There's a story in Matthew chapter 9:_______And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”_______

A few thousand years ago, Jesus was begging his disciples to pray that people would open their eyes to those who were being harassed and to those who were helpless. A few thousand years ago, Jesus was saying people are too busy doing harvest in their own lives to have their minds and hearts opened to the pain of the people around them.

A few thousand years ago, Jesus wanted his disciples to pray that we would all become humble enough for his compassion to become our compassion.

You know what I believe. I believe as Christians we fail to pray that prayer - we fail to ask God to open our eyes to the pain of people around us - we fail to pray that, not because we don't believe Jesus, we fail to pray that because we DO believe him.

Sitting here right now, if I close my eyes and get still and quiet and real serious with God, and I ask God to just one after another start putting people in front of me who are in pain - God is going to do it. Like Nike, you'd better believe he's going to just do it.

If for one minute I ask God to show me the people who need compassion as fervently as I've spent hour after hour asking for God to have compassion on me, he's going to do it.

I don't hesitate to pray that prayer to God because I don't believe, it's because I do.

And once God answers that prayer, once he starts showing you people in pain, well then you have to respond. Or at least, if you don't, you can no longer hide behind the veil of ignorance. You no longer have the Christian privilege of pretending God wants me to stay out of this.

Once you pray that, you have to ask yourself why it's mainly black people protesting in Minneapolis and not the entire collection of Christian churches. You have to ask yourself why we so forcefully demand to be allowed back in our church buildings to worship together in a pandemic instead of daring someone to stop us from spilling into the streets of Minneapolis to be with people who REALLY need us together.

Once you pray that, you have to ask yourself why you don't speak out with more humility for the people who are daily hurt and harassed publicly by people who call themselves our leaders.

Once you pray that, every bite of food becomes a call to feed the hungry.

Once you pray that, every closet full of clothes we'll never wear becomes a call to cover the poor and the homeless.

Once you pray for God to open your eyes to the pain of the people around you, once you make a commitment to that prayer, oh, you've prayed the prayer God's been waiting on you all your life to pray. Every single day.

I think as Christians, if we do indeed fail to pray that prayer, it's not because we don't believe in God. It's because we absolutely do.