Disturbed

A couple of weeks ago, I was showing the photo book I had made of our trip to Haiti to a little girl I know. She came to the picture of a little baby with hydrocephalus. She quickly slammed the book shut and said in a sad voice, “That’s disturbing! Her head is so big.”

 

I thought about what she said for awhile. My initial reaction was that she shouldn’t have reacted that way. That precious baby girl can’t help what she was born with. Why should that disturb my friend?

 

But as I thought about it more, I started to think that maybe seeing that kind of suffering should disturb us. Here is the definition of disturb: “To break up or destroy the tranquility or settled state of; to trouble emotionally or mentally; upset; to interfere with; interrupt.”

 

After reading that definition, I believe we all need to be disturbed more often. We have numbed ourselves to the pain and suffering going on in our world. We need to be disturbed out of our day-dream. We need to be disturbed and distraught when we see an innocent child dying of a treatable disease.

 

But most importantly we need to be disturbed to action. We can’t sit around and feel sorry for the world. We have to DO something about it. I had built up so many barriers around my heart so that I wouldn’t be disturbed by the suffering around me. But God broke down those barriers, strike by strike.

 

What about you? Are you willing to be disturbed? And will you take action when you are disturbed?