Haunting Faces

For weeks after our return the faces of the children remain in my head. Their smiles and beautifully whitened teeth, the way their eyes light up and how innocent they are. The kind gestures they made to us, brushing dirt off of us, buying a sucker, whipping sweat off of our heads, fanning us. The sound of their voices, the way they said our names. The way they sang songs and how their faces looked as they sang. The humble love they showed us. Those sweet little babies… Totally trusting, Totally humble, Totally helpless.

Revelation 7:16-17
Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lord at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Isaiah 45:23
Turn to me and be saved, all you end of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

Isaiah 35:3-4
Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give was; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Isaiah 35:5
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Isaiah 33:22
For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King; it is he who will save us.

Isaiah 30:18
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Isaiah 29:24
Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction.

Isaiah 16:5
In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it – one from the house of David – one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.

1 John 4:7-13
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God shows his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. Dear friends, since God so loved use we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

"We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes. So when you and I hear staggering numbers and statistics about the poor and needy around us and around the world, we have a choice. We can switch the channels on our mega-TVs and continue our comfortable, untroubled, ordinary, churchgoing lives as if the global poor don’t exist. We can let these numbers remain cold, distant, and almost imaginary. Or we can open our eyes and our lives to the realities that surround us and begin considering the faces that are represented by these numbers. I think about mass of kids and their parents in the slums of Delhi, India. Families with three, four, five, or more children living in eight-by-twelve-foot shacks. We dodged piles of human feces that littered the ground as we walked on the outskirts of the community. Water was limited, food was scarce, and the urban slum continued for what seemed like miles with no end.
These are the images that come to my mind when I consider what it means to live on less than a dollar or two per day. These are the faces I see when I envision twenty-six thousand children dying today of starvation or preventable diseases. As I see their faces, I realize that I have a choice. You and I both have a choice. We can start with the starving or with the overfed.
We can identify with poor Lazarus on his way to heaven or with the rich man on his way to hell. We can embrace Jesus while we give away our wealth, or we can walk away from Jesus while we hoard our wealth.” ~Radical by David Platt