Glass Panes

I have a huge window in my dining room which gives me a big view of the street upon which I live. I like to stand at that window and peer at the world early in the morning. A jogger passes by, a car speeds past, a stray dog sniffs something in the yard and moves along – all without any sound, all without any interaction with the people behind the glass.

It’s the very window where I watched my children grow up, remembering my daughter playing safari in the tall grasses of the field across from us—now inhabited with a house—where, donned in a bathing suit, a bicycle helmet and fuzzy winter boots, she single-handedly played the part of six safari animals. To this day her imagination never ceases to amaze and amuse me. It’s the window where I saw a man I did not know carry my son’s limp body across my front lawn, a moment I’ll never forget where time stood still and I briefly thought, “can I endure this?” The next moment revealed the unspeakable gratitude of my heart when I looked into my son’s beautiful blue eyes, full of life, but slightly traumatized by the daring bicycle stunt gone awry. He was out playing again an hour later and all his buddies thought he was the coolest. I think he still is.

But I’ve grown dissatisfied with this view of the world. Through it are now a new generation of children, not my own, and it only serves to remind me of a happy chapter in my life which is slowly fading away. And while the children are lovely, the world never changes and my heart grows increasingly dissatisfied with this view.

Twelve years later, I find myself standing at the window in the dark of night, waiting for one of my kids to arrive safely home from their evening with friends so that I can go to bed and sleep peacefully, knowing they are once again safe. Yet as I lay my head on the pillow I am reminded that these windows are only our views on the world, not a fortress against danger, and I contemplate that against a heart which leans toward danger.

The confines of my home provide me no satisfaction, no security of what lies out there in the world. Yet my nomadic heart grows restless as the years drone on and I find myself with the insatiable desire to traverse these lands outside my window; meet people I’ve never met; learn a language; feed and water a human soul; open another’s heart to truths and promises he never knew existed; and unashamedly give God glory for the light of wisdom.

My window has moved to the pane of my computer where I travel distant lands using the wide world of the Internet (thanks, Al). I see smiling faces, battered women, children in refugee camps. I see people helping people and planes falling out of the sky. I watch in horror as men overcome men in shallow conquest, their victorious smiles last but a moment, as they lie awake at night knowing it could have been them.

I read stories of churches and temples being torn down in the name of a false governmental idea; women beaten and jailed for talking to a man who isn’t her spouse, young boys and girls taken captive to a most vile and sinister ring of human trafficking known to mankind. I listen to mp3 links as women passionately bear their shame for abortions they now regret, their gripping stories compelling young women everywhere to keep the child. I watch videos with unclear and unfounded statistics about the intervention of anti-Christian religion in the United States, a religion where we might well see the second wave of Christianity. And then a new window becomes my focus. It stands wide and narrow but it also stands firm against Truth. It wants no part of my culture. And I hardly blame it.

Our world is changing; no one can doubt that. Our view of the world has become smaller; no one will argue that. And these views open us to something very frightening, disturbing and sobering. My hand reaches for the blinds. My first instinct is to pull the curtain, lock the window and retreat to my vain and selfish desires. How easy it is to passionately strive for worldly things and at the same time block out the world while doing it. We rush toward Wall Street while the child starves. We have pulled the curtain on love. We forget from Whom we come; for Whom we exist.

But I stand and watch because it is all I can do right now. Yet each day I find a new Truth which gives me solid ground upon which to stand, a mission behind the mission of educating the uneducated into the precarious world of the 10/40 window—a world without a savior—a world of bloodshed, oppression, marginalization and torment masked by a false sense of peace and tight-fisted governmental systems.

These are the places that draw my heart the most. And when the marginalized and oppressed smile at me through these panes of glass, I smile in return because I know their smiles are genuine, brotherly and loving. I want to be a part of that. I want to see the sunrise of their smile brought forth by authentic joy and utter Truth. I want to see their light of understanding as they read the Word and know Him for the first time. I want to call them my brother in the language they understand and stand hand-in-hand with them in grateful prayer to our Lord and King.

These windows on the world show us harvests ready for the harvesting. We cannot deny, we cannot grow complacent, and we cannot turn and judge our neighbor. We are to become so entrenched in the harvest that our response is not apathy and indifference but fervent and passionate prayer for the workers—the brethren called forth by none other than Christ Himself to come and harvest the fields.

Lift your blinds, O man! Open your curtains and unlock the window of your soul to the sacrificial love of Christ and stoop down to feed the hungry child. Go visit your field, ready for the harvest, and bend your knee to the lowly. For as you do He will lift you up and make your work a spectacular glory so all man can see and no one can doubt Whom you serve and from Whom your light shines. It’s time to open the window and see the world through the eyes of Christ.