Just When I Think I Care Enough

I Discover Something Else to Care About.

One of my favorite things to do on a morning at home is to tune our little radio into KUAR 89.1, our local NPR station. I casually listen as I eat breakfast, do dishes, or "dance Cinderella" with Laila. Today was one of those days.

This morning on Fresh Air, investigative reporter Charles Fishman discussed the worldwide thirst for clean drinking water. Fishman told about his visiting a third-world country, where girls and small boys must walk miles--MILES--to fetch clean drinking water for their families each day. Their average load is two or three gallons, a weight of 16-24 pounds, which they generally carry on their heads. Now, this bit of information elicited quite a bit of sympathy on my behalf: It is sad that they must walk so far for what I am sometimes too lazy to walk to the kitchen. Then, however, Fishman lowered the boom when he pointed out that we use that much water--some families' daily supply--with one flush of our toilets. I immediately felt...greedy. And ignorant. And then overwhelmed. And then hopeless. And then helpless.

Sometimes, hearing all the bad news in the world and all its problems and then comparing them with the sphere of my influence and abilities is utterly overwhelming. I feel helpless to do anything and am sometimes consequently compelled to do nothing at all. After all, what can one person do?

This is, of course, wrong thinking, but that doesn't keep my mind from retracing the same old familiar ground whenever the trouble of the world pricks at my heart. It would be so much easier to steel myself and look the other way. Then I remember the words from my Guidebook for Living:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
....
You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
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As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

-excerpted from James 2 (NIV)

We are very explicitly called to act on behalf of our brothers and sisters in need when it is within our power to do so. After all, God sent no ambassador to save me from my depraved state; he came Himself.

At the Same Time...
I think it is easy for us as Americans--or at least for me!--to throw money at a problem and call that a deed. Though I think it is definitely important for me to become financially involved in alleviating the troubles of the world, my actions must be an overflow of the condition of my heart.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest command. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

-Jesus, speaking in Matthew 22

This scripture helps me to balance out the truth found in James. I know that I cannot singlehandedly solve all the world's problems, but I think what I can do for the world is let its problems affect me, let them break my heart and mess up my cozy little life...and then ask God for help in knowing how I should act. Jesus not only asks me to do, but also to care; and inversely, not only to care, but also to do.

And when the weight of caring becomes too much, and my heart is heavy, I count my blessings--particularly the immaterial ones--and remember some of the most encouraging words in scripture that I'd like to leave you with today:

In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:33