it all started with a woman named annette. she’s a single mom who lives in six-by-six room with her five kids (sometimes a sixth stays with them too).
i had seen poverty before, but from my 32″ TV inside my trendy little house. i read about it online, saw books and magazines dedicated to photodocumenting those who have the least.
but, i had never touched poverty until i took a seat on that bed in annette’s house.
i had never smelled poverty until we walked through the slums where she lived.
i had never tasted poverty until the combined smells of sewage, cooking, and poor hygiene combined and entered my mouth as i inhaled deeply.
before my trip to uganda, i cared about the poor, but i didn’t love them.
if i loved them, i would have done something, plain and simple.
and i hadn’t.
in crazy love, francis chan writes
lukewarm people do whatever is necessary to keep themselves from feeling guilty. they want to do the bare minimum to be “good enough” without it requiring much of them…they ask, “how much do i have to give?” instead of “how much can i give?”
it took about a month of struggling through my emotions (which i had shut down because denial is easier to handle than the pain of reality) and i finally realized if i am truly a follower of christ, truly a believer, i must change.
i must act.
there is no excuse for us not to love – and therefore act – on behalf of those without. without food, water, healthcare, or freedom. the bible does not give us an option. we are told over and over again what we need to do, but we get lost in our burden of wealth and we forget.
we compartmentalize “poverty” and “injustice” as causes and don’t integrate serving those trapped in them in our minute-by-minute living, as our continual act of worship.
In the 19th century, Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote,
I fear there are many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudgingly at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money.
today is blog action day and bloggers are posting about poverty. which me writing a blog and you reading it is all fine and dandy, but it’s blog ACTION day.
there are thousands of kids who need sponsors through compassion international. for what you would spend seeing a movie or buying a new shirt or going out to eat with a friend once a month, you can release a child from poverty. the math is easy. and if you think you’re too poor to do anything, and you’re reading this on your computer or your phone in america, you’re not too poor. and forgive me, but you need to stop thinking that you are.
if you already are showing the love of christ to someone less fortunate and you’re sacrificing then with all my heart i say thank you.
if you’re not, you can start today.