The Thread Through You

"...I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." - Ezekiel 36:26

We sat through the story, the video, the appeal at the end. Our first instinct was to turn away. We've heard that cry too many times to be touched any more. The needs are everywhere, how are we supposed to live if we treat every one of them like they're ours to fix? But this one wouldn't let go... why? That settled feeling started to loosen when we remembered what it was like to be the one who was broke, sick, alone, stuck on the side of the road, and someone moved toward us without us even asking. Something was beginning to shift. The "...heart of stone" was becoming "...a heart of flesh," and we could feel it.

Jesus put a picture to this. A priest and a Levite avoided a wounded man by crossing to the other side of the road, not because they were cruel but because stopping would cost them ritual purity, time, and what they would feel if they stopped. "But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him," Luke 10:33-34. He didn't stop to evaluate or calculate what he felt. What moved him to act was called eleos in Greek, mercy in action. The choice cost him oil, wine, money, time, and personal risk. We often find out it costs more than we thought. But in that moment, the cost doesn't matter anymore. "Mercy triumphs over judgment," James 2:13, and mercy wins.

That face you saw, and all those memories keep coming back. It's one of those things you try to walk away from but can't. A year ago you might have walked right past it but for some reason, today something is shifting. Augustine, an early Church Father, called mercy miserum cor, a heart made wretched by someone else's pain. It's not weakness, it's a heart of flesh doing what stone never could. This doesn't start with us. "...God, being rich in mercy... made us alive," Ephesians 2:4-5. He moves first, and now we're no longer the ones passing by on the other side of the road. The thread of mercy that reached out to you now moves through you. Live it out.

Prayer

Father, give us the courage not to look away. Where someone's pain has reached us, help us not to protect ourselves from what the heart of flesh was designed to feel. You moved first. Teach us to move too. Amen.