Polluted

Polluted.  Just to say the word makes you conjure up scenes of smog hanging low in a crowded city.  It draws up memories of taking trash to the dump and witnessing the mass amounts of garbage piled up like a speckled mountain.  It solicits thoughts of clutter and craziness, of gray skies and dark moods.

I must admit when reading James 1:27, I always stuck to the first part of the verse.  "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress."  I never thought much about the next part of that verse...."and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Polluted.  What in the world was James talking about as it relates to taking care of orphans and of widows?  I think I know.  To be polluted by this world would be to allow the gray, heavy cloud of worldliness to settle over us like a stormy day.  It means changing the "I wants" and trying to mask  them as "I needs".

We all do it....taking something this world thinks we have to have to be happy and just folding it into our own philosophy.  Do any of these sound familiar?

I need to have enough money so that my kids can play travel ball
I need to have a boat
I need to be able to eat out at least 3 times a week
I need a week long vacation to the Bahamas
I need to have my nails done at least once a week
I need
I need
I need

Don't misunderstand me.  None of these things are wrong in and of themselves.  I for one would LOVE to have my nails done every week! And a trip to the Bahamas?  Yes, please. But, what happens when we take our legitimate needs of food, clothing, love, an education, a home, and we clutter those up with all of the things we think we need to be happy.  That is when, as James says, we are polluted by the world.  Stinky, vision altering, can't breath kind of pollution.  I feel asthmatic just thinking about it.

It is certainly not in our nature to fully grasp that it is in giving our life away that we truly find life. You see, when we allow all of these temporary things to step in front of obedience, right then and there, we trade in the "best" and we get "good". We get temporal instead of eternal.  Most of the things we see as "needs" are temporary pleasures.  Here today and forgotten tomorrow.  Truly ridding ourselves (or at least a filtering) of the pollutants introduces us to the one thing that is at the heart of God.....relationships.

Fostering, adoption, and care for widows means a relationship.  The investment is eternal. No earthly toy or treasure can match or take the place of investing in a person.  Whether it is a child wounded from rejection, a teenager bruised from years of abuse, or even an elderly woman who needs a hot meal, pouring in to others  is costly.  Pour out anyway.  Pour out yourself with abandon.  Then, see for yourself the miraculous refilling of your soul. The finding of the life within you that you never really knew you were missing until it was revealed through these precious, and often times broken beings.

Every wound healed, every child a home.