Is it nothing to you?

Lamentations 1:12 AMPC

Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was dealt out to me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger!

It's so easy to harden our hearts to the suffering going on in the world.

We are offered a myriad of escapes from reality these days.

Games, movies, sport and entertainment of all sorts seek to distract and anaesthetise us to what is happening around us.

We rely on the mainstream media to "feed us" what they want us to know and believe.

To really understand events we have to bring them before the Lord and interpret them in the light of scripture.

Just this morning I thought of the awful suffering of those caught up in the war in Ukraine.

How must it be to be exposed to the intense cold of winter without power, not sure when the next attack is coming.

Honestly, I don't know how to pray. It's too terrible.

Yet it is vital that I don't become indifferent to the suffering and pass by unaffected

When the greatest event of all - the Cross of Jesus - took place, some of the soldiers were playing games, gambling with blood-spattered hands for Jesus' clothes.

Jesus' suffering was nothing to them.

As we build up to Christmas, it's too easy to be busy with presents, cards and food prep - that we overlook those in the midst of grief, loneliness and poverty.

I do pray that Jesus will keep my heart open to reach out where possible and bring comfort and joy practically to those far and near.

May it never be nothing to me, in Jesus' name.