Resting in His Big Heart
By Dr. Kevin Higgins
Let me start with a portion of Psalm 33, verses 14 and 15:
"...from God's dwelling place God watches all who live on earth—God who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do..."
I have been reflecting a lot on a particular tension that seems especially heavy and real in the current season that we, meaning FV/WCIU but also our country, and our world, are all going through.
The difficulty I experience daily is the effort to hold two constant realities and necessities in my soul at one time:
The transparent awareness of my own immediate and personal struggles, alongside the struggles I am most familiar with given where I live or given my natural connections, and...
The awareness that the same or similar struggles are just as immediate and personal for others who may not be on my radar, but who share this planet with me at this same season.
Examples?
COVID
I am sure you expected this one, so let me add it first!
Just as COVID surges and new strains take place here in the USA, so too COVID is doing that in other "here's": in Thailand, in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, in India, all places where we know people. But COVID is doing this everywhere, in places and to people we don't know. One of the most troubling and saddening things about this is that COVID presents humanity with an opportunity to unite, at the very least with a common empathy, but we human beings by and large seem to be missing the window.
VIOLENCE
On the one hand in the USA alone, CNN reports 45 mass shootings. That is not in the last decade. Not in the last year. That is in the last MONTH ( https://apple.news/AKl515Fw0RsmKex7RO1Exxw)
I tend, we all tend, to be aware of the shootings near us, or the ones in the headlines. But 45?
However, that is just the USA. Globally? I doubt there is even data.
RACIAL and ETHNIC TENSIONS
Again, I tend to focus on what is near me, or maybe what is in the news. And although I know that the news represents only a fraction of what is there, I find even that fraction overwhelming. Then if I dare to think "this is only a fraction, and only in my region or my country, what about the world", I can sink into numbness.
As one example, just one example of a more global view of this, I will refer to Pakistan and the Baloch people. Yes, this taken from within my own experiential frame of reference, but I am also self-consciously choosing this because of its connection to our FV/WCIU focus and purpose, to see all peoples experience the blessing promised to Abraham.
The Baloch, thanks be to God, are experiencing a number of movements to Jesus. They are also an oppressed people, whose language and natural resources, and culture have been in danger of being wiped clean by a Punjabi majority (among whom there are, now, also some movements emerging).
A phenomenon that has been taking place for years has been anti-Baloch violence, and the kidnappings of young men especially, most of whom are never seen again (though I know one who was miraculously freed after 6 months).
Of course, nothing in our news (though Al Jazeera did an excellent documentary in 2012. Here's a link below, if you are interested. One of the men interviewed is a believer that is known to some of the men I have known over the years...and his role in anti-government activity will highlight the complexities of the choices new disciples are faced with...I am not condoning his decision, but it is helpful for us to feel some of the reality, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4aTxF3xjWA).
GRIEF
I won't say a lot here, but my dad is on hospice, my family and are rallying in wonderful ways around him and my mother, and I personally am grateful for the grace I see. But of course, there is grief, not just for him, but in this case the whole trainload of life, boxcars all connected, and his passing being just one of the boxcars hitched to the train.
But my point is not about me or my family or my dad or my grief.
It is again, the question I ask myself: daily, indeed this very moment, countless unknown families are experiencing this same reality, some known to me, but obviously, the vast number not.
THANKS, A LOT, and SO WHAT?
So far, I have probably only served to add to everyone's weight and feelings of being overwhelmed (mine too). "Thanks a lot, Kevin".
Life is already a load of overwhelmingness!
I have days where I feel, and I am sure you all feel, like what I tried to express in my song "The Cow Behind the Barn":
I'm barely hanging on by threads I stole from someone else's yarn
So, now what?
Two things.
One: This is just a reminder to myself and to us. And it is good to remember that everything we hear about, and know about, and face is something common to many, many others all over our world. Overwhelming, yes. But a healthy necessity. So, allow it, embrace it, even seek it sometimes.
Two: There is a bigger Heart that holds it all. And I have nowhere to go but to place my small heart in that big Heart. In the Heart of the One the Psalmist spoke of:
"...from God's dwelling place God watches all who live on earth—God who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do..."
God knows. God sees. God is not overwhelmed. God is able to form the hearts of all, even in this season.
For me, for you, and for all peoples of the world.
I draw real strength, and fresh life from this, and pray you will as well.
From my heart to your hearts in the big Heart,
Kevin