depraved indifference
Warning: this video makes me cry every single time I watch it. If you are a movie crier are in a public setting right now maybe wait to watch it. And if you aren’t a crier I still think this video should make you cry.
As he imagines his son, Hudson, in that situation I try to imagine my daughter, and it just breaks my heart.
Transcript:
“You see there is a cast system in heaven, but it is exactly backwards of the cast system the world creates, this world applauds and esteems the wealthy and the powerful, the privileged and the talented. That’s not how God’s system works. Jesus came and he approved it, he took the lowest spot and He was God. The bigger you get in the kingdom of heaven, the lower the position you take. The special ones in God’s kingdom are the weak ones: the ones who can’t fight for themselves, the ones who can’t speak for themselves, the ones that don’t have someone to feed them, the ones that don’t have someone to protect them, and Jesus says those are the prized ones and you treat them as the royalty here on Earth. And the way you treat them is ultimately how you’re treating me. What you do unto the least of these is how you’re ultimately treating your God. Christianity is taking what has been purchased by the cross, the behavior of heaven, nature of Jesus Christ, and transplanting into the heart of men and women down here on Earth. So that they behave not like this world, but like heaven. And so when this world sees them, they are different there is something odd about them, they are from another realm. What does it look like? It is noble, it is brave, it’s courageous, it is selfless. It is willing to spend itself for the weak.
“I was doing some study on Liberia. If you wanna be disturbed, start studying Liberia. This 4 year old boy who was sitting on the side of the road, no one to comfort, no one to take him in, no shelter, no food, nothing. So the middle of that night, I wake up. And it’s like God had already deposited a question that was waiting to meet me when I popped awake in the middle of the night, 2 in the morning. I had this picture of this little boy in Liberia in front of me. And God asked me a question, What if that was Hudson? My four year old. Eric, what if that was Hudson. You don’t mess with a father’s heart. What if that was Hudson? My boy was on the side of a road across the world from me, suffering, totally alone, not knowing what was happening, he’s not old enough to comprehend this, he’s abandoned, he has no one to fight for his cause, no one to give him a voice he doesn’t even know how to articulate his circumstances, he’s hungry- no one’s feeding him, he’s starving to death. If my son is in that situation stick a concrete wall in front of me and I’d claw it through with my bare hands. This is my son we’re talking about. If I couldn’t get there I’d call up every friend I have, and I would say, “I have a son over in Liberia, you call yourself my friend. I need you to get on a plane, and i need you to get to him. I’ll give you the coordinates, I’ll do whatever it takes, but I need you to get to my son and be a Father to him.” God’s response, “Eric, that’s my Hudson. That is MY Hudson.” And He’s looking to us, and he’s saying, “I’m calling up everyone I know, everyone on my list that calls himself by my name that says they’re a friend of God and I’m saying my son is over in Liberia, are you willing to get on the plane and get to him?”
“We have a cause, but we don’t want to see it. And it’s when we finally acknowledge the fact that something is wrong with us. Not with the world out there, if we start with this little group here and we say God you need to fix this. I suffer from depraved indifference. So do you. Oh we care, it’s not that doesn’t move us at some level to hear about this little child over in Liberia. We care. But we can go home tonight and sleep just fine. How is that? It’s because there’s an indifference to that life. And it’s naturally born within us, that life isn’t affecting us, its not in our backyard, were not related to it. It’s someone else’s issue. In fact, we start quoting scriptures about God being a father to the fatherless and we’re like thank you God for being a father to that child. He says, “Remember you call yourself my body, I’m not there except throughyou. Your hands, Eric those are my hands. Your feet, those are my feet. That heart? It’s my heart. If its not beating, my hearts not beating on this earth anymore. I work through my body. I’m a father to the fatherless through my body, I rescue the weak and the vulnerable through you. And if you’re not doing it no one is.”
“There is a solution for our disease which is known as sin. And it’s Jesus Christ. There is a solution for these dying children. And it’s Jesus Christ. Might sound over simplistic, but that is it. That is the solution. Because Jesus Christ will change a man like Eric Ludy into a man that feels what Jesus Christ is feeling. And he cannot stay in suburbia USA anymore and not do nothing. Heros are made because they are moved, not in their head, but in their heart. You have to be moved at such a level that you will shed blood. Jesus Christ was moved. For God SO loved the world that he GAVE, and that son that was given suffered and died for what? For the cause that is being laid before us tonight. It wasn’t head knowledge, about the disaster taking place in this world, it was life abandonment. Unto the cause of those that are dying, unto the eternal souls that are around us. Do we care at the level God cares? Do we carry a burden? When we go home tonight will we grieve over the fact that those children are God’s children? And he is longing for an advocate to stand up and say, “I’m willing God to fight for what is Yours, I’m willing God, burden me.” When Jesus was in Gethsemane, you know what he was there for? He was there for life. He was burdened with the weight of it all for LIFE. And he was willing to sweat great droplets of blood. Are we? For our King and his glory, we will rescue these little ones.” -Eric Ludy
with love,
Chantel
