Broken Arrows
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“Children…are like arrows.” Psalm 127:4 NLT
Our children are like arrows; they must be aimed in the right direction. When they are aimed in the wrong direction, they can end up in violence, drugs, and destructive lifestyles. And as long as we jeer at or judge them, they will never feel comfortable turning to us for help as they go through life. Broken arrows come in all colors and forms: black, white, rich, poor. Pain is not prejudiced; it spares no age group or social strata. What’s the answer? Let the strong bear the infirmities of the weak (See Romans 15:1). “Jesus…had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14 NLT). Compassion is the mother of miracles! When the disciples thought they would die in the storm, they did not challenge Christ’s power, they challenged His compassion: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). Where there is no compassion, there will be no miracle. Only when you are moved by someone’s pain rather than turned off by their symptoms can you bring healing to them. One author writes: “We can build all the churches we want. But if people cannot find a loving voice within our hallowed walls, they will pass through unaltered by our clichés and religious rhetoric. Church is not a club for the well-heeled, but a hospital for those needing to be healed and set free. You don’t have to like everything about the people you are called to minister to, but you do have to love them because God does.” We have been called to gather up those the world has thrown away because they matter to God: “‘They shall be Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘on the day that I make them My jewels’” (Malachi 3:17 NKJV).
PRAYER: Dear God, help me to remember and to show the compassion of Christ with those You place in my path today. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.
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