All the Possibilities

Every day we see bad things happening to people around the world courtesy of the news media. To make ourselves feel better about not being able to help so many others, we say, “Well, of course I will help those in need who are placed in front of me.”

But we often live in places where we can avoid those in need, where necessities like hunger and health are taken care of but where materialism and pride run rampant. We focus on ourselves while comfortably ignoring those in need who live around the world or even just a city over.

The needs in the world can be overwhelming to think about and impossible to take care of all by ourselves. But I think we should be asking these questions:

1. Are my priorities straight? What am I living for? What comes first in my life? Money, pride, pleasure, status, seeking the love of a husband, a wife? Or God?

Stop and think about this first question. It is the most important.





2. We wouldn’t have been able to see the devastation of the 2004 tsunami in India if we didn’t have today’s technology. We now have easier ways of seeing and of helping. But the fact remains that we can’t help everyone. 18,000 children die a day due to starvation. But there’s only one of me. So to what extent should we be helping the seemingly infinite amount of needs that are now placed in front of us?

3. Should we physically place ourselves in areas where need is apparent? Moving out of our hometown, our state, our country?

4. Have we been so focused on ourselves and on those around the world that we fail to address the need of the person in the room right next to us?

The answers to these questions are not plainly laid out in Scripture. We have no rules about how much emphasis we place on any one of these questions. Different people are led to take action in different ways.

From a simplified, “reaching the nations” point of view, one person may be led to give up everything they own and become a missionary in a third world country which does not know Christ. Another person is led to be a good steward of his money to support the guy who went to become a missionary. And there are yet others who are led to do any number of things between the two extremes.

You cannot say to one or the other that they are not doing as the Bible says because, depending where their heart is, they both are! The missionary is helping others because of support from the steward and the steward is helping others through the missionary.

If ALL Christians were to give up their houses, cars, and lives here to go live in another country, how would they all support themselves and the others that they are trying to help? If they all chose to be good stewards in America, who would reach the unreached in other countries?

To what extent must we take action?

We have to be open and asking ourselves these questions, open to ANY possibility so that the Holy Spirit can work through us.