Matters of the heart

One of our churches downtown has a free medical clinic on Tuesday mornings, and I have been blessed to be able to go and help out. I don't always feel like I'm of much help, but it's fun to be there. Most of the people we treat are homeless, though some of them are better-kept than others. Some are alcoholics and still haven't hit bottom; others are truly trying to establish themselves but can't find steady work; others are lazy and want to live off the work of others.
I usually don't leave the clnic broken hearted; my ministry here in Rio was solidified inside that church, ministering to "favelados" and homeless people. To be able to do what I do, whether it be in the favelas or downtown, I have to step back from the situation and look at it objectively. My emotions rarely get involved, because I would be a wreck if I allowed them to control every response I had to these people. Yesterday was a little different. God has been opening up my emotions lately to hurt for others. In saying that, I don't mean having pity on people or feeling sorry for them. I mean hurting in the depths of my heart. We saw a patient yesterday who has been in several rehab centers (including the one that the church has). He arrived at the church drunk. Again. He went to one treatment center where the patients couldn't even leave the facility to buy bread (though it was provided), simply to avoid putting the temptation of drink in front of them. He is addicted to cachaça (a Brazilian liquor made from sugarcane -- it's very available and very cheap) and doesn't eat much. He is the son of a pastor, yet his father's relationship with Jesus can do nothing to change this man's life. His family (12 of them, immediate and extended, as far as I could tell) has been praying for him for years. He is still alive. Still drinking, but alive. I can't help but wonder what God intends to do with him.
Another man came to us needing a bandage done. He was quite pleasant to talk to, but was in severe pain. He was wearing one shoe and one flip-flop. He had a wound on his leg that was severely infected. At some point in the past (Brazilians, and more specifically homeless people, have a sense of time and the passage of events that is hard for my North American mind to grasp), he was wounded with metal on his shin. I don't know if it was a factory accident, or shrapnel, or just a crazy one in a million thing. He was trying as hard as he could to take decent care of the wound, wrapping it with clean (?) bandages when he had them, leaves when he didn't. As the doctor and nurse opened the bandages, I had to leave the room. The infection was severe, his leg was swollen, and the open wound was putrid. As the doctor and nurse cleaned his wound, the smell dissipated. As hard as this man was trying to take good care of his leg, he didn't have the capacity or the resources to do so, and my heart went out to him. I wonder how many hospitals he had been turned away from before he saw us yesterday.
Something that Pastor Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church in Seattle -- check out the podcasts) said in one of his recent sermons was that God doesn't go to the nice houses and find the good kids to adopt them. He goes to the orphanages and picks out the worst ones. In other words, He doesn't pick us because we have been good, or because we will be an easy child to raise. In fact, we all at some point in time are the horrible kid in the orphanage who has no hope for becoming a contributing member of God's Kingdom. But God picks the hopeless cases. We try so hard to take care of ourselves, to fix our problems, to heal our diseases, but we can't. Sin is a disease that we have no remedy for but perfection. For us, that is impossible, but through Jesus, it is already done. God has given us the remedy for all our evils and ills. Why? First, because He loves us. Second, because we are cases that no one but God can do anything with. Sin's only remedy is Jesus. He alone can change us. He alone can turn us into a contributing member of His Kingdom. God is good, and He is powerful.