The Cries All Around Us

I am reading a book entitled Cries of the Heart by Ravi Zacharias. In this book he outlines God’s answers to the cries of the human heart. Those things which sidetrack us or drive us off course, those things which cause us private pain which we may never share or even let on we feel like we are dying from on the inside. I am not very far into the book, but there was a passage which caught my attention. I wanted to share it with you because it ties in with something I have been thinking about recently. What do you do when you feel like giving up? What do you do when you feel completely overwhelmed and see no sunlight or way of escape? Have you even ever felt that way?

We all have questions which are difficult to answer. “Why do I not feel God to be near when I have done all that I know to be right? Who are You, God? Why is there suffering? Why am I suffering?” “If anything unites our cultures today it is the unanswered questions we face that have a felt reality. The loneliness of an unloved life is the same in Bombay as it is in Barcelona. The life tormented by guilty is the same for a movie icon in Hollywood as it is for a schoolteacher in Havana. How do I chooose a life that has pleasure without living a life that is immoral?

These gnawing questions were underscored by a grim and dreadful incident that took place in New York City some years ago, the culmination of a series of almost indescribable events that had befallen a young woman. The story is too heartrending to repeat. Feeling the silent pain of a whole city, a state senator agonized, ‘How can so much go wrong in one life and nobody be aware of it?’ After days of pondering that obvious question, a city councilman gave the only plausible answer. He said, ‘Life is too busy and complicated for me to hear the cry of every person in my community. As a matter of fact, I struggle to find time to even hear the cries of my own family. If I had to listen to the cry of everyone in New York City, you may as well ask me to listen to the sound of every blade of grass growing and to the heartbeat of every squirrel. The noise would be deafening on the other side of silence.’ I doubt he overstated his point. If the cries of the heart in any community were to be cumulatively sounded, the noise would indeed be deafening.

Where, then, can we go?

There is a place where there is an aggregate of human suffering and questioning. That place is the heart of God.”

I found the answer of the councilman saddening. I don’t know that he meant he didn’t care, or wouldn’t take the time, but I think this is the attitude of too many people in our world today. I think this includes Christians as well. I don’t disclude myself from this statement. I know I am guilty of it. The answer to the problem may seem obvious, but it isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Our old nature gets in the way. Satan knows our weaknesses and knows exactly what fear to feed, thought to place in our mind or doubt to cultivate in our heart. I see in my mind the picture painted in Pilgrim’s Progress when Christian is being bombarded with flaming arrows. Are you in that kind of a situation right now? Do you know someone who might be drowning silently in their own private nightmare? It is hard to reach out for help. It is hard to admit you need something outside yourself to take the next step.

So what am I getting at? Pick your head up out of your PDA, cellphone, book, etc. and see who is around you and what they need. Ask God to lay someone on your heart who He knows needs a lifeline. God wants to use you in His plans. He doesn’t need you to accomplish His purposes, but He does want to use you. Is someone around you in need?