The World is bleeding, Throw it a Band-Aid!

Can't sleep right now. Got in bed, excited to be going to sleep, and then, as happens so often, my mind began racing and sleep began taunting me and jeering me, so I told sleep that he's overrated and I figured I'd sit down and type some of my thoughts. That will show him...

Well tonight I sat with a young black man at the gym where I was playing in a basketball league. In our conversation he confided that his sister-in-law's brother was just killed in L.A. Murdered, shot in the back six times by a rival gang member...He said that there are so many murders like that in LA that the police will probably never get the guy. He said that the victim's gang will probably get him before the police do...I asked this man what happens in those areas, why do young people want to be in gangs? Why do they become killers? I've heard the reasons before, but I wanted to hear it from someone who has been there. He told me about the poverty in those areas, the extreme drug use. He told me how most of those people have no education and kids grow up with parents who didn't make it through school and so they don't have any ambition to either. He said there is an extreme lack of education and a lack of role models.

At another time in my life I sat with a young man from Uganda. He told me that his brother has AIDS and his mom is sick and it is hard for his family to get food in the winters. He, a college student, was the provider for the family. He told me that one of the things he couldn't believe about America was how many hospitals we have for pets. He said where he's from there's not much for hospitals for people. At another time in my life I got to spend the afternoon at an orphanage in Costa Rica. I played with kids who were pretty content to be running around with a frisbee and took a lot of joy out of that despite the fact they were growing up with no parents and no family...

As I listened to that guy talk tonight, I just wanted to start crying. As I think through these few things I've mentioned and many many other stories of hardship that I've heard and witnessed, I just wonder, what are we doing? What am I doing? These aren't stories- these are real people with real heartache and real physical suffering and I'm pretty sure you could read through any one of the Gospels and figure out that Jesus was passionate about helping such people. I just feel like on a grand scale the church is failing in reaching people. I know that there are people reaching out, but I just feel like there are so many who aren't. I don't want to be like that. It's too easy to ignore the problem. If I don't know about the problem, don't think about the problem, then I also don't have to think about the solution. I don't have to be a part of the solution. I just keep praying that God will help me to focus on an area and to go after it. I don't want to live comfortably, I want to live effectively. On the otherhand, I think that sometimes we see all the problems in the world and we just get overwhelmed by it, we feel like there's too much to overcome and so we don't try. We don't chink away at anything. Sometimes we write a check and hope someone else will do the reaching for us. The world is bleeding and we are throwing it Band-Aids.

I thought about our propensity to be overwhelmed and then paralyzed by it...You know what came to mind? Twelve guys trying to take the news of one man's resurrection to the entire world. That in the face of immense persecution...In the face of very limited communication and very limited travel. They certainly gave up comfort. They threw that right out the window at the get go. We are so afraid of pain. I am so afraid of pain. I'm afraid of giving up the things that make me feel safe, that make me feel important, that make me feel validated, that make me feel loved, appreciated, and comforted. What am I gaining? What is anyone gaining by that kind of thinking? I started thinking tonight, are we looking at our lives thinking about what kind of house we might have or how we can improve our homes or are we thinking about how we can house someone else? Are we thinking about what kind of car we might get or are we thinking about how we can give someone a ride? Are we thinking about how we can avoid trouble and pain or are we thinking about how we can relieve someone else's? The question is not whether danger frightens us, it is whether danger immobilizes us...

Are we thinking about the time we will spend in heaven some day or are we thinking about how we can get someone else to go there?

God I am sorry that my life is so ingrown. I'm so sorry that my selfishness reaches levels inside of me that I don't even know about. I am sorry that I am even afraid to type these things for fear of having to live up to what I'm saying. I am sorry that I am afraid to give every last drop of myself for what you love- mercy, sacrifice, love for people, your glory. God please help me to be pro-active. Help your church to get off the couch. Thank you for those parts of your body who are reaching and bleeding and loving and showing You to the world. Please make the rest of us like them! Show us how to take a step.