I won’t pile on another boo-hoo essay about how the average American is suffocating under the avalanche of information that gets dumped on him every day. (That would be ironic since my blog would likely be just another pebble that lands with a rattle and a puff of dust near your SOS signal.)

But I will offer a different angle, more like an aha moment than an oh crap moment. It goes like this: the same technology that brings me useless status updates and viral cat footage also exposes me to an enormous amount of human suffering in the world. When both types of information travel the same information highway, it blunts my compassion reflexes over time. 

Does simply knowing about a cause make me noble? If so, then sign me up for sainthood. The ubiquity of lower-case causes is making it worse for upper-case Causes. I grew up during a time when causes were laid out one at a time. It was the era of Jerry Lewis Telethons, Amnesty International concerts, and Live Aid. Everybody knew about them, and everyone’s mercy was highly concentrated. It is different today when our mercy reservoir is taxed by relentless daily information, a constant digital draw on our spiritual compassion. 

You remember the passage in Genesis 18 where Abraham petitions God over and over? God has come to “see whether [Sodom and Gomorrah] have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me,” and He hangs behind as the two angels go down towards Sodom.  This is where Abraham approaches Him to inquire:

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I have often comforted myself by reflecting on a passage from Lamentations 3 that talks about how God's mercies are new every morning. Of course, when I think about that reassurance, it is always in the context of failure. More specifically, my failure. I have, once again, failed to live up to my calling as a follower of Jesus, but he won't hold it against me; his mercies are new every morning.

Furthermore, the context is usually one of my perpetual failure. For example, have I known for years that I need to watch my words more carefully? Yes, I have. Yet nearly every day, I fail to do so, and on the days when I am a bit more reflective and self-aware, I regret my failure.

Woe to those who protect wolves: will we fight to discern between mercy and deception?

This is a merciful generation: one that hears the silent wounded and sacrifices toward their healing. Yet such a generation must be cautious--Satan will seek to use our mercy against us.

Sometimes it's extemely difficult to distinguish between a healing sheep and a patient wolf. But by nature, wolves are carnivores. Eventually they show their teeth. Unfortunately, if we have protected them in the name of misled mercy, their teeth may bare in a position of influence that wounds more than we could have imagined.

Wholeness is a process. We stumble, pause, get up, take a another step, fall, weep from discouragement, take an offered helping hand, get up, stumble again...But the goal is clear: we are moving toward God. Pilgrims ask for forgiveness in the journey.

I’ve met a lot of people in my young life, but, yesterday I met a fellow that will not soon be forgotten. I mean the guy told me to grab his goatee, he’s a good man.  Charlie Hall is a Singer/Songwriter/Worship Leader/Pastor and now a friend. We had the chance to hang for a few hours yesterday as he and my friend Phil Wickham are on tour together and the tour stopped here at Cornerstone.

Charlie is one of those guys that lives like I hope I live. He lives in the midst of his story, believing God, believing the scripture, making his declaration through the art of song and doing everything with Christ in him to live it out. A couple things really stood out to me from what I observed in my time with Charlie and I’d love to share them with you.