Every day they pass me by...

Every day they pass me by

I can see it in their eyes

Empty people filled with care

Headed who knows where

On they go through private pain
Living fear to fear
Laughter hides their silent cries
Only Jesus hears

- People Need the Lord (Steve Green)

 

I’ve been here over five months now, and I still haven’t entirely gotten used to the sheer number of people I see on an ordinary day.  Literally hundreds and hundreds.

 

Every day I see them, watch them pass by, wonder what I’d find if I could take a look inside their lives.  What are their hopes? their fears?  What makes them laugh or cry?  What’s important to them?  What keeps them going when life is rough?

 

So many people.  So many stories.  So many needs.

 

Perhaps it should fill me with determination and resolve, a motivation to press on in learning and in loving.  But it doesn’t.  It makes me feel small, helpless, and overwhelmed.

 

There are days when I want to run away from the needs I see all around me.  Not because I don’t care, but because of the impossible magnitude of it all.

 

How in the world am I supposed to do this, this reaching people for Jesus thing?

 

Me, with my faltering French.  Me, the still-outsider.  Me, with my own fears and failings and weaknesses.

 

What can I possibly do of lasting value?

 

Sometimes we think we need to be strong and brave and capable.  That we have to have it all together for our broken, needy world.

 

So when I find myself not very strong, not very brave, and very incapable, what’s there to do?

 

I could try to stuff it and pretend to be brave, but there’s really no faking capability.  I only have to open my mouth and that notion goes out the window.

 

It’s frustrating and exhausting, but the Lord keeps reminding me, It’s okay to be weak.  Small.   Unqualified.

 

Because it’s not me that they need after all.

 

People need the Lord.

 

And so do I.