Our care-o-meters are broken. They don’t work on large numbers. Nobody has one capable of faithfully representing the scope of the world’s problems. But the fact that you can’t feel the caring doesn’t mean that you can’t do the caring.
You don’t get to feel the appropriate amount of “care” in your body. Sorry — the world’s problems are just too large, and your body is not built to respond appropriately to problems of this magnitude. But if you choose to do so, you can still act like the world’s problems are as big as they are. You can stop trusting internal feelings to guide your actions and switch over to manual control.
You can’t actually feel the weight of the world. The human mind is not capable of that feat.
But sometimes, you can catch a glimpse.
This points hit home.
As a Christian myself, I believe this is by design and we are not suppose to bare this weight by ourselves. We are not designed to (and hence not supposed to) be able to comprehend nor FEEL the tremendous amount of suffering in the world.
That’s God’s weight and God’s burden to carry.
This is a message I recently heard and resonate with. This is taught to the staff serving with IJM. I don’t have a recording of the message, but letting God handle the weight is described eloquently at https://www.eauk.org/news-and-views/activism-and-burnout
God’s weight, our work, Jesus’ way
The work of justice – of activism, of making wrong things right – is heavy. It takes its toll. But it is not our weight to carry – it is God’s. As Christians, we are called to do the work, but not to carry the weight. And so, we throw the weight off onto God – those children waiting to be rescued from human trafficking, the trials being continually delayed, those big meetings, the partnerships we long to see but seem impossible. He is big enough, strong enough and mighty enough to carry the weight. Plus, let’s be honest, it was His in the first place. Justice is part of God’s big story, redeeming the whole of creation, and – believe it or not – He cares about it even more than we do. The weight is not ours to bear.
But we are called to do the work – whatever that looks like. So we do what we can – investigating, prosecuting abusers, caring for survivors, writing talks, making connections, crunching numbers – to participate in God’s big mission of justice through His people here on earth. We do it Jesus’ way – with love, patience, faithfulness. And we leave the rest to God.
This points hit home.
As a Christian myself, I believe this is by design and we are not suppose to bare this weight by ourselves. We are not designed to (and hence not supposed to) be able to comprehend nor FEEL the tremendous amount of suffering in the world.
That’s God’s weight and God’s burden to carry.
This is a message I recently heard and resonate with. This is taught to the staff serving with IJM. I don’t have a recording of the message, but letting God handle the weight is described eloquently at https://www.eauk.org/news-and-views/activism-and-burnout