Funny, isn't it, how you can watch the news on TV every once in awhile, read various news articles online to try to stay informed, and of course, religiously patrol the "News Feed" on Facebook, and yet in all reality, forget about the world and live as if you're enclosed in a little, personal bubble?
I never wanted to be that person that "forgot" about the rest of the world. After all, I spent a year as a missionary overseas - like I could actually forget about the world...
I never wanted to be the person that was so consumed with paying the bills, making a name for myself, what's on TV, and what things I would buy when I went to the store.
And yet how easily we get consumed with ourselves, or at least, how easily I can get consumed with myself - my problems, my frustrations, my bills, my money, my job and my time.
But let’s be honest, the society in which we live condones and even encourages this kind of mentality, and unless we were to completely shut ourselves out from the rest of the world – every store, TV show and commercial, magazine, movie, and so on- it would be impossible not to be influenced by these things.
A little over a year ago, I visited an art district in East Asia. On one street, there was a huge gallery dedicated to LeBron James, complete with bigger-than-life-size pictures of him, his shoes, a basketball court, and everything else LeBron James. Kind of fitting after James vainly decided a few weeks ago that his decision regarding where he would play basketball next year was worthy of an hour of the world’s time.
Just down the street was another, much smaller, less flashy gallery and store. I wrote this several hours later:
By far my most memorable part of the day was walking into what seemed to be a store that was selling postcards, notebooks, etc. When I rounded the corner there turned out to be a pretty small gallery with some different paintings hanging on the walls. But what caught my attention was a wall with just a few framed collections of photographs.
Contained in each of the 10 picture frames were six 3x5 photographs of impoverished families in a small village in East Asia along with a sentence or two on their story and who they were. I can't even begin to describe to you the living conditions that these pictures showed. I don't think I saw a single bed, bathroom, any kind of living area, etc - only very small, gutted, concrete structures with mud for a roof. The buildings they were living in looked more like abandoned cement cubicles than homes. Most children were orphans or living with one parent who had either a mental or physical disability and couldn't work, and whose other parent had left long ago. Many of the families were being 'supported' by the government, probably living on less than a dollar a day.
My heart just broke for these people and I turned away in the middle of the room with tears welling up in my eyes and just being frustrated because I know that you could fill up thousands of art galleries with similar pictures from all over the world, yet I don't know what I can practically do for them. I'm not rich and I can't help much by just going to them.
There HAS TO be an easier way to allow people to see these needs and then DO SOMETHING to meet them."
18 months removed from this experience and, I too, had almost completely forgotten about those pictures, the amazing people in that country and the students’ overall sense of hopelessness, the orphans I visited and their lonely beds, and the huge Kingdom vision that I had of the world.
That God so loved the world, that I’m commanded to make disciples of all nations, that I get the privilege of being involved in taking the good news of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Grabbing hold of and keeping this kind of vision for the world is a flat out fight given all the different influences surrounding us and trying to penetrate our minds. But it’s a fight that has very real consequences and very real rewards. Much is at stake.
The world is so much more worthy of my thoughts, my prayers, my time, and my energy than my day-to-day worries, my PlayStation 3, or watching the Bachelorette on TV.
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