My heart carries a burden when I look around and don’t see many beside me. My hands are helping, but why aren’t men and women of faith showing up? Why aren’t they present?

Culture tells me to work harder and get higher. It tells me to stay connected at lightning speed. To rush around and be a good friend, employee, sister, and daughter. To attend church on Sunday and then go crush my job during the week. To get things done. And love people – whatever that looks like. To have fun. To go to concerts and to get drinks after work. To go on vacations and plan huge wedding ceremonies.

But, all that thinking is about me and what I want. What about other people? How are we thinking about others instead of “me?”

I believe there is a huge disparity among believers going out and using our time selfishly. We are a selfish generation. And we are using our time wrong.

I have shared a bowl of steaming hot chili next to men out of prison, addicted and destroyed. They share deep stories rooted in despair. Their newborns have been murdered by their wives and they turned to alcohol or drugs for comfort. Or, their family has turned their backs on them. They cannot live without fueling their addictions, because they don’t have anything or anyone to turn to.

But, these men are not unlike most of us. We are all broken and addicted.

My heart breaks. My heart heart breaks wide open that these men sit next to me and talk lightly about their experiences. Because we are ALL in the same boat. Our addictions are just not out in the open. We don’t check into a rehab facility for too much social media stalking or cake additions.

My heart breaks, because in a small church, there are about fifteen constant people who show up to share a bowl of chili, or to paint a house, or to deliver flowers to baristas.

Fifteen people care with their actions. Where are the others?

Your heart might not break over addiction, but does your heart break for a human?

Dear children, let us not love in words or in speech but in action and in truth. – 1 John 3:18

Church, we can show up and use our hands in serving others. Serving takes time and planning, but the outcome is we are doing what Jesus did. That’s what He has called us to do. That’s WHO He has calls us to be.

My heart is broken for my friends to gain an understanding what serving another truly takes. And, my heart is broken for my generation. For the Church to act like Jesus instead of finding inspirational artsy quotes to lift us up and memes to make us laugh.

Let’s break our hearts for others, together.

I’m in the trenches learning and leaning into what has gripped my heart and hasn’t let go. I desire to help bridge the gap between selfishness and serving.

Those two words are opposites and cannot coexist.