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BLIND SPOTS #5
TOO BUSY TO STOP AND LOOK
There’s a beautiful little orphanage up in the picturesque
hills of northern Thailand, where my denomination runs an academic institution
called Maetang. And if you happen to stop by there, which one of our staff
members recently did, the kids there put on quite a show for you. First
of all, some tribal dances from the various hill groups of that region.
Then they sing — and these young people can sing in various dialects,
plus Thai . . . and they tell me the kids can flawlessly belt out the
newest praise songs from America and Australia: Give Thanks, Shout to
the Lord, etc. It’s a marvelous treat to hear.
But then one more thing: eight or ten of these children will stand up
there in a row, and without batting an eye, recite the Beatitudes from
Matthew 5. Then all of First Corinthians 13, the great “Love Chapter.”
Then the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20, followed by all of Psalm 19.
And these kids just go on and on, chapter after chapter. They know the
Bible cold, whole chunks of it. I guess when you’re in the hills like
that, without cable and maybe just a bare minimum of Internet access,
you have time to hide God’s Word in your heart, like it says to do in
Psalm 119. And will it make a difference in their lives, as those children
grow up, hopefully move into loving homes, and become the Christians of
the next generation? The Bible says in Proverbs 3:1:
“My son, do not forget My teaching, but keep My commands
in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years AND bring you
prosperity.”
I’d like to think that God will fulfill that promise
many times over for those amazing children of Maetang.
We’ve been studying the concept of blind spots all this week, and our
missionary friend told us a few stories of taxis careening down the streets
of Bangkok, on the wrong side of the road, passing where they shouldn’t,
changing lanes at will. Actually, he told me that the idea of “lanes”
is very loosely considered at all in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, and there
were a few hair-raising moments. But as we’ve been mentioning, for the
child of God, one of the best ways in the world to adjust those rear-view
mirrors and clean the dusty windows is to memorize the PRAH-kahm-pee,
which is the Thai word for Bible. Get its truths firmly planted in your
mind.
In fact, let me add just one more metaphor to this “blind-spot” discussion.
Sometimes we need better mirrors. Or cleaner windows. Friend, it might
even be true that we need a whole new body design. Car manufacturers have
been known to take a faulty design and say to the engineers, “Look, guys,
this can’t be fixed just by turning the mirror five degrees. With that
blind spot off to the right, we’re setting ourselves up for a flood of
seven-figure lawsuits. Now just go back and fix it so the driver can see
who’s in the next lane over.” And maybe, if you’re floundering in your
faith, if you feel like that young New Testament rebel named Saul, who
was actually blinded by the light of God’s power, what you need isn’t
really a spiritual “tweak” or slight adjustment, but a whole new body
design. The Bible promises us that in Ezekiel 11:
“I will remove from them their heart of stone,” says
God, the great body-design specialist, “and give them a heart of flesh.”
I’ve met new Christians before where I truly believed
they fulfilled the triumphant statement of Jesus in Revelation 21:
“Behold, I make all things new!”
Here on a Friday as many of us think perhaps of taking
our cars and our rear view mirrors out onto the freeways, let me remind
all of us of one more “blind-spot” reality. Isn’t it so true that many
times our blind spots don’t just hurt us — they tie up the freeway for
everyone else too? And oftentimes, a person who veers into a blind spot
sends another family grieving to the cemetery. That’s the tragic nature
of sin, isn’t it? The innocent are hurt right along with the guilty; in
fact, so often they’re hurt even more. You abruptly change lanes and sail
innocently off into the sunset, not seeing the ten-car pileup you caused
back there on the Interstate.
Some of you are familiar with a tragic Old Testament story found in Judges
11, where a warrior named Jephthah was in a battle against the armies
of Ammon. And one day he rashly vowed that if God gave them the victory,
he would sacrifice the very first thing that came out of the front door
to greet him when he got home. It was an absolutely stupid thing to do,
asinine. And, lo and behold, when they win and get back home, his pretty
little teenaged daughter — an only child, the Bible tells us — comes dancing
out the front door, tambourine in hand. And here this foolish man is “bound”
by a moronic promise he should never have made. Now get this: he has a
blind spot – about God’s character and about integrity – that is so crusted
over, he actually goes ahead and compounds his mistake by fulfilling that
evil pledge. Bible scholars debate whether he actually sacrificed his
daughter as a burnt offering, killing her . . . or maybe just forced her
to live a life of celibate virginity. But instead of saying, “I was foolish;
I was wrong. No way am I going to go ahead and do this evil thing,” he
follows up one blind-spot decision with a second one, and who gets hurt?
His innocent child.
Going back to that mountainside orphanage in Thailand, why do you think
so many of those children are without parents? A lot of times, because
Mom or Dad died of AIDS. Tragically, this country is the child-prostitution
capital of the world, perhaps also the sex-tourism capital of the world,
and there are thousands of babies now, many with the HIV virus too, who
will never know their natural parents. Someone on Patpong Road, the red-light
territory of Bangkok, had a blind spot about the go-go bars and the one-night
stands, and now the children help pay the price, down to the third and
fourth generation, the Bible plainly tells us.
Well, friend, how about here at home? In his book, Becoming a Contagious
Christian, Bill Hybels joins up with Mark Mittelberg to describe how many
believers get into a blind spot where they’re just too busy. He has a
chapter entitled “The Pull of Compassion,” and a concept called your “compassion
quotient.”
“In the ebb and flow of my life,” Hybels writes, “I
can always tell I’ve let my schedule get out of whack when I find myself
routinely passing up chances to express compassion because I simply lack
the energy or time. But when I consciously take steps to bring down the
pace of my life, I find time and again that both my desires and my opportunities
to show love and mercy to others naturally increase.”
Can you see yourself right there? If we’re too busy,
or too stressed out at work, or too fixated on our own pleasures and hobbies
and sports, then needy people around us are just plain in the blind spot.
We don’t even see them; we don’t sense their hurt. We go right by them,
or we can’t see how a ten-dollar gift could help that person because we’re
saving that ten dollars to spend on our new tennis socks.
Right after making this confession, Hybels tells us how he and his wife,
Lynne, were in a little restaurant one morning. And the waitress looked
like she was really struggling for some reason, fighting back tears almost.
Finally, Bill, wanting to NOT let her anonymously slip into his own big-shot-pastor-at-Willow-Creek
blind spot, went up to her. “Can I help you in any way?” he asked quietly.
She stopped cold, not expecting this. “No,” she said, “but thanks. Thank
you so much.” Then she explained. “You see, my former husband is coming
today to get my 15-year-old daughter. I’m not going to get to see her
again for six months, and it’s hard. It’s really hard.”
Bill put a hand on her shoulder and told her, “I’m so sorry. I know I
can’t do anything to change the situation, but I really feel sad for you.
My wife and I are over at that table if you want to talk or pray, or if
we can help in any way, but I just wanted you to know we care, and I wish
we could help in some way.”
And that was it. He went back and finished his breakfast. Did that marriage
get back together? No. Was the parting later that day any easier? Probably
not. Did the lady jump right in her car, go over to Willow Creek Church
and become a born-again Christian believer? There’s no evidence that she
did. But as Bill and Lynne paid the check a few minutes later, the waitress
did glance over at them and give a little nod. That little moment of connecting
did make a difference. And day by day, as Bill Hybels stays focused on
keeping hurting people out of his blind spot, and squarely in his vision,
and as you and I do the same thing, let me tell you something, friend:
we can make a difference for the Lord Jesus Christ. We can bind up the
wounds of the broken-hearted, just as He did.
Friend, God bless you as you tenderly — and generously, with your eyes
wide open — make the drive home.
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