My Bible reading notes this morning (on Amos 1v11 - 2v5) started with these words: “We live in a world where human life is cheap. Pray for God to draw your heart close to his so that you can feel the value of people.”
What a good prayer to pray, and how necessary to pray it. But do I really want to pray it? Do I really want to love and feel the value of people? It costs to do so. I’ll get hurt if I do so. Getting close to people, loving them, knowing their value, will make me vulnerable and open to rejection, heart-ache, heart-break. I could end up being like the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 9v1); or like the Apostle Paul (Acts 20v19); or like the Lord Jesus (Luke 19v41). Oh, yikes, that might not be a bad thing then…
And besides what is the alternative to loving and valuing people? “There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no-one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” CS Lewis.
Let us pray…