The mail piles up on kitchen counter. Sales papers, credit card offers, utility bills, and the starving cry for my attention. I browse the sales, tear up the offers, file the bill to be paid, and pause. This is my choice. Here, delivered right to my mailbox is a way, a way I've been seeking to help the needy, serve the poor and homeless, sick and orphaned. But how many times have I seen the bloated tummies. . . and thrown them in the trash.
Our nation oozes affluence. Even in our humble home, living on a budget with five people who need to eat and a light bill that needs paying and clothes that need to be bought, we live in the top 20% of the wealthy of the world. The other 80% of the world lives on less than $10 a day, and a majority of that group lives on less than $1 a day.
The saddest part of this story is that most people will read those statistics and think, "Wow, that's hard to believe," and promptly change the channel on the television and stuff another handful of potato chips in their mouths. This seems harsh, but the reality is that most of us know there is desperate need in this world, but most of us do absolutely nothing about it.
Even now I can see the rolling eyes and groans of people who have become so apathetic you can see their hearts harden before your very eyes. I am ashamed to say, that for awhile that was me. The envelopes fill the mailbox, and if you give once they all come asking again and again, until it feels like all you give is going to pay for the postage of all this mail you receive. But when it comes down to it, the question is,
am I willing?
Am I willing to make the right choice. To choose seven meals for the starving or one for my family to eat dinner out. Am I willing to choose sacrifice over self? Am I willing to love others more than I love stuff? Am I willing. . .
This begs the question, what if I had been born in sub-Saharan Africa, what if my mother had just died of AIDS, what if there was nothing at all to eat. . . or drink. . . or wear? What if all I knew was desperation and starvation and loneliness? I would want someone to care. I wouldn't want my picture thrown in the trash. Choose today. Boldly care, boldly give in faith, and there will be no regrets.
"It's very apparent that you are to love the Lord with all your heart and then you're to love your neighbor as yourself. And myself doesn't want to be starving, and so I don't want other people in the world to be starving. Jesus does not ask that we care for the less fortunate, He demands it." -Katie Davis
www.samaritanspurse.org
www.compassion.com
www.WorldVision.org
