With Our Own Eyes

To say that I think of Africa, namely Kenya, a lot would probably be an understatement.  Although it seems here lately that none of us can escape it really, considering the situations happening in Libya, Egypt, and the Ivory Coast.  And those are just the ones that are making headlines.  Don't even get me started on Zimbabwe.  I recently watched a documentary called "Mugabe and the White African."   It's a very compelling documentary, one that made me vacillate between wishing God would somehow wipe Robert Mugabe off the surface of the earth to wanting to cry my eyes out over the injustices in this world.  I was both disturbed and inspired - disturbed by Mugabe and his regime and inspired by the men featured in the story, who were choosing to take a stand, even at risk to their own lives. 

But that's beside the point.

I realized something tonight as I was reading over some Bible verses.  I was working on my lesson material for this week's small group and one of the verses we were to focus on was James 1:27, which says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."   Our study actually focused on the previous verses, but I was left pondering this one.  I dug around through some commentaries and I was struck by the notes from Vincent's Word Pictures:

"James strikes a downright blow here at ministry by proxy, or by mere gifts of money.  Pure and undefiled religion demands personal contact with the world's sorrow - to visit the afflicted and to visit them in their affliction."

I, of course, read this and thought of Africa (you may think of your own example).  I thought of Johnson and Benson and Elijah and Denise and all of  the other little faces that I so dearly miss on a daily occasion it seems.  And while I spend a lot of time looking back, I look ahead to what the implications of this verse and this quote from VWP really mean.

It's not enough to simply give money or to wish for a better life for those who are afflicted.

I have to see it with my own eyes.

You have to see it with your own eyes.

If we are to care for the fatherless and widows of this world, those who are without a leader, a guide, a husband, a shepherd - if we are to care for them, then we have to go and see them. 

I loved the definition of "to visit" in Thayer's Greek Definitions - "to look upon or after, to inspect, examine with the eyes."

You see, it's not enough to merely watch the world's hurts on the news or to read about it in a book.  We have to see it with our own eyes.  And I think that's the driving force in my desire to go back to Africa.  I want to see it again - with my own eyes, with the understanding that I am responsible.  I think there will always be this part of me that will never be satisfied until I set foot on that continent again - and to come face to face yet again with the world's deepest needs.  Even as I read over that above quote from VWP, I thought of Zimbabwe and the situation there.  If we are to be the Christians that we say we are, then maybe that even means going to Zimbabwe (or wherever - that's just my example)to see the afflicted people there in their affliction.   Maybe it means going to Egypt.  Maybe it means going to Libya.

Or maybe it means going up the street to the hospital to visit those who don't have families.  Maybe it means going to a homeless shelter and meeting the afflicted there.  Whatever it may mean, we have to examine it with our own eyes if we have any hope of making a dent.  

I loved the story David Platt gave in his book Radical. He talked about a trip he took to Sudan, one where he originally questioned whether it was worth going himself, maybe he should just send money rather than spending everything on a plane ticket and such just to get to the people.  But then he went and when he got there he met a man who thanked him for coming - thanked him for being present in the flesh, for not just sending money, but for physically giving himself to the people.  It meant more to that man that David be there, laboring alongside him and with him, than it meant to simply receive whatever money he might have sent.

Our physical presence matters to the people we encounter and help.  We have to be willing to give of ourselves and not just our finances or well wishes.  It matters to them that we see them.