I am numb.

Numb to those I pass on my way to work. Bodies covered in flimsy sleeping bags, heads resting on cardboard, slowly waking to the drum of London starting its day. I am numb to the advertising boards portraying air-brushed women in near naked poses. I am numb to the lyrics of songs blaring in shops, full of provocative expletives.

Like many Londoners, I have a case of 'Metropolitan Blase'. A city-life survival tendency in which our senses close off; keeping us from constant, draining stimulation. And in the process, we become unschockable

I wasn't always numb. Trips to London used to stir unrest to the very core of me. Every sense would be engaged and I'd fall into bed exhausted with pictures running through my mind, and my heart stirred with sad sights

I don't want to be unshockable, I don't want to be unconcerned or nonchalant. I don't want to be numb

Lent is a time to give up something, a time of sacrifice that will lead us closer to Jesus. I want sacrifice my comfortable metropolitan blase. I want God to re-break my heart 

I want my shock factor back

I want to desire to weep for the lost, move towards the hurting, give my sarnie to the hungry. I want to desire to reach out to those who have been told so many times that they mean nothing that those words have become a lifestyle

My challenge to you is to dare to pray that prayer with me "Break my heart for what breaks yours". A prayer that God takes seriously - a prayer he is poised to answer, desperate to hear. 

Our own mundane worries melt away and our priorities shift in the light of the things that make a powerful, loving God weep. We are his hands and his feet. With broken-hearts and available hands - things change - everything changes. 

How can it not?

Anna Mathur