Too Difficult To Understand

There are many things that we do not understand. And life is too short to try and figure all of them out. There are times when we must look at the evidence and then do the right thing - even when we don't fully understand it.

But that is not what happens. Our human nature has a way of making things more complicated than they need to be. There was a time when I needed to have all of my questions about Christianity answered with bullet proof scientific answers. I had to have all of my questions about the Bible answered (i.e. who really wrote it, intelligent people do not believe it - do they, how can anyone really trust a book that is full of errors, who said that God wrote it, etc.). Today, I read what the Book says, accept it as truth even when I do not completely understand it! To be honest, life is better that way. Look what Moses wrote:

This commandment that I'm commanding you today isn't too much for you, it's not out of your reach. It's not on a high mountain - you don't have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it. And it's not across the ocean - you don't have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back and then explain it before you can live it. No. The word is right here and now - as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it!
(Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

Every Child's Hope Weekend was a watershed event for the City of Cincinnati. Great national speakers, informative breakout sessions and a large group of agencies and groups involved with foster care concerns were there. The weekend was all about the fatherless and the orphans in our cities. They live near and around the Church but sadly, the Church does not see them.

But the children, the orphan, the fatherless and the vulnerable children see the Church. But what do they see? Indifference? Grace? Mercy? Compassion? Christ? You decide:

• In Ohio, there are 4,000 children in foster care who need forever homes. There are 16,000 churches in Ohio. If 25% of the churches took just one child, all of the children would have homes.
  
• There are 143 million orphans in the world, and over 2 billion professed Christians. If 8% of the Christians looked after one orphan, all of the orphans would be cared for.

The numbers speak for themselves, the Church is not involved. Dennis Rainey (of FamilyLife) said this a few years ago:

The orphan does not need the Church.
The Church needs the orphan.

The Church needs the orphan so that the heart of the Church stays tender, compassionate and Christ like. Without the orphan, the heart of the Church can become like shoe leather, tough and impervious to injustice and suffering. Perhaps that is why the Apostle James, wrote this advice for us:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27)

We don't need mountaineers to climb the peak and bring this verse down to our level to explain it. It's very clear. Not everyone in the Church is called to foster care or adoption. But all of the Church is called to care for the orphans in their distress. For some, this is Too Difficult to Understand. Is it?

When was the last time, you heard a message at your church on adoption, on foster care or caring for the 143 million orphans? Not a bulletin blurb but a sermon with passion. How much of the missions or operating budget is given to the fatherless?

Given the evidence at hand, not recently and not much.

The Church may be the only Christ a dying and hurting world of orphans will ever see. That's not too difficult to understand. Best advice for the Church - as Moses said, read the Word of God and just do it! Be the Church that Christ intended.