What happens when home becomes horrific, and you have nowhere to go? What does it feel like to find yourself unsafe in the one place your foundational thoughts tell you should be your haven? Or worse, when it’s all taken from you and you’re left at the mercy of the world?

We are inundated right now with images of Australia burning. It’s terrifying to look at and hitting close to our hearts. We have friends with homes near those fires. Images that look like our worst depictions of hell have become commonplace with heartbreaking tales of families losing everything.

It’s been many, many months since we went out to visit our family in Yal village. Their home isn’t safe. All along the main logging road leading to their smaller bush road, people have been randomly targeted and killed. Awfully, unimaginably murdered. Unrecognizable bodies are found on the side of the road as people make their way into town for market or work. Our family is staying put in their village as much as they can, so we haven’t seen them recently. In light of the violence that has been steadily increasing over these last months (it’s been happening for years, but is getting more random and more frequent now) they asked us to refrain from coming out. Knowing it was possible to run into something grisly on the road, we had already made that decision for the sake of the girls until something gives.

A few weeks ago 200 people living in settlements just on the edge of town had their makeshift homes burned to the ground with all their worldly possessions, which wasn’t much to begin with. After an incident at a secondary market near the police station resulted in a death, people retaliated by going into the settlements and razing them. None of the people in those shelters were part of what happened at market, and yet they paid for it with everything they owned because of anger, drunkenness, and hate.

What is happening? Our earth is dying. Creation is groaning. I don’t know how much longer it will groan before God says enough, but as southern Australia faces days that are crowning them “the hottest place on earth” and fires rage and wars rumble and rumors of wars run rampant and world leaders continue on in corruption, hate, and gross moral failings. Well, it’s easy for fear to creep in.

As the talk of goals and resolutions swirls around the internet, of losing weight or reading the right books or reaching work potential, I can’t help but feel lost. Confused at the world we live in. The choices we make to poorly steward God’s creation playing out in the natural consequence of a destroyed environment; the choice we make to hate each other in defense of our principles; the hurts of fellow humans we ignore as we deify political leaders who can’t help us… all while neglecting to fall on our knees and stand in the gap for people who can’t. People who have lost everything. People who are hiding and overwhelmed by fear. People who are marginalized and abused, and in turn marginalize and abuse.

I’m not immune to this. I’ve been busy making goals for myself and my family that revolve around our personal lifestyle, our reading (been thinking a lot about that one), our growth. It’s not wrong to do those things, of course. We should always be striving to glorify God by making wiser choices, and resolutions can help us evaluate and focus energy on that. It just feels so out of balance.

Instead of fighting abortion with corrupt politicians, what if the Church made a resolution to pour love on the mamas in trouble? What if they made a resolution to become leaders in the adoption movement providing a living, breathing, loving solution to women in the worst imaginable situation? OR, what if the Church stopped fighting for more rights and instead committed to a hard ministry that looks a lot more like Jesus’ ministry when he walked this earth? The rights I see people defending can almost always be boiled down to security. But where in the Bible are we promised that?? So what about the Church making a resolution to leave decisions about immigration to politicians whose job it is to protect the country, and instead focus our energy being Jesus to all those whose homes have failed them? Those people have lost everything to a broken world. When we stand in judgement before God, do we want him to say, “Well, you fought hard for your bit of ground that’s burned up now. That soul over there you didn’t feed, didn’t clothe, didn’t love, and ultimately feared in your protection of that burnt up ground? That was me. Poorly done.”

Where is the Church??? It’s breaking my heart, this world. The response of the Church is breaking my heart. My own response in its selfish leaning is breaking my heart. So here are our family’s resolutions or goals. We want to see others and not be immune. We want to pray for others without ceasing. We want to serve others however God wants us to. I’m a little frightened of that resolution because I know God will meet us and challenge us there. But I’m more frightened to not make that our resolution. God calls his people to so much more.