While
making his landmark documentary about World War II, filmmaker Ken Burns and his
colleagues watched thousands of hours of military footage. Scenes of the
devastating Battle of Peleliu often invaded their dreams at night. Burns told Sacramento
Bee reporter Rick Kushman, “You’re listening to the ghosts and echoes from
an almost inexpressible past. If you do that, you put yourself into the
emotional maelstrom.”
There’s a
price to becoming involved in the struggles of others, whether artistically or
spiritually. Paul experienced this in his work of sharing the gospel: “Apart
from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all
the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my
intense concern?” (2 Cor. 11:28-29 NASB). Oswald Chambers said we enter this
spiritual struggle as we “deliberately identify ourselves with God’s interests
in other people” and “find to our amazement that we have power to keep
wonderfully poised in the center of it all.”
Paul realized that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Jesus paid the greatest price to be involved in our world, and He strengthens us as we share His love with others.
