How We Fail The World

Eighty percent of India lives on less than 2 dollars a day. That's more than 800 million people, or about 3 times the population of the United States. And that's just India. Only 8 percent of the population of Uganda has electricity in their homes, and for all but maybe .1% (MPs, President, well-connected businessmen, etc) that electricity is only on every other day. Over half the population is unemployed, and employment for many is pushing a bicycle loaded down with bananas for miles up and down hills. Most live by subsistence farming. I pay my yard/house worker about $11 a week for 18 hours of work, and based on the going rate I vastly overpay him. Homes consisting of a roughly 10 x 10 room with a dirt floor, mud walls and leaky iron sheet roof are anything but uncommon. Though we are used to prosperity, for the majority of the world's people it is but a dream.

People here die left and right from disease, be it AIDS or malaria or tuberculosis or any other of a host of diseases. Many who die die not because their condition is incurable, but rather because the resources simply aren't there to cure their ailments. Though we are used to medicine being able to cure most of our own physical ailments, most of the world doesn't know what good healthcare is.

In Somalia people live without any real form of stable government and are racked by warfare. The Acholi and other people of northern Uganda continue to be plagued by the vicious LRA. Rebels still thrive in the jungles of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The situation in Darfur continues. East Timor is descending into further and further violence. War between the Tamil Tigers and the government of Sri Lanka seems never-ending. Civil war continues to plague Iraq. Though we are used to peace, war rages on across the globe.

The rule of Robert Mugabe has plunged Zimbabwe's economy into complete collapse: the month of April alone saw inflation of 1,000%. Governments across the world continue to crack down on political and religious dissent. Human rights are a joke in most of the world's nations, including it's largest and, in terms of economics and power, fastest growing: China. Though we are used to freedom, it is truly a rare thing indeed.

We really are a petty people. We are so greatly concerned with kind of car we drive, following the next big fashion, who's going to win the next survivor, what is Tom Cruise going to name his baby, who is the next American Idol, do I have better landscaping than my neighbor, what's the big toy this Christmas season, how good of graphics will the newest version of Halo have, how many gadgets can we buy (and are they the cutting edge or a month old?), how many homeruns would Barry Bonds hit without being beefed up on steroids, who does the best job of getting a ball into a basket or out of a park or into an endzone, etc. At the same time most of the world is wondering what (or rather if) they are going to eat today, if their children will ever get even the most rudimentary education, how many of their children will even live long enough to stand a chance at an education, if they'll get sick from the river water that they drink, and so on.

"But we've got our own problems," we say. A quick glance at BBC News World Edition any day of the week will quickly show that our own problems are small compared to those of most of the world around us. Plus to say such is to reveal our own ethnocentricity: in using our own problems as an excuse for not helping others, we are saying that we ourselves are more important than the rest of the world. Not exactly placing others more highly than oneself.

"But the problems are so great that there's nothing we can really do," you might say. And certainly the problems ARE too great for us to conquer on our own. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. There is far more we could do to help the world, be it through advocacy or sacrifice. As for the former, who are the great advocates for the poor, for the oppressed, for the war-torn, for the sick? Are they the leaders of the church? Hardly. It seems that Hollywood actors and actresses, that Oprah and Bill Gates, that "hippies and liberals" are far more concerned with the plight of their fellow man than anyone in the church. If we so greatly love all of mankind, why do we sit idly by as our fellow man suffers? Why are we, as the standard-bearers of God's love, so quiet about the problems of the world? Should we not be the ones leading the way in publicizing and attempting to solve those problems? Or do those who are not saved love people more than the children of God?

As for what we can actually do beyond just advocacy, there are two principle things: sacrifice and prayer. We are living in a time of war; not against our fellow man, but against Satan and sin. Yet how many of us are living a war-time lifestyle? How many of us are willing to give up all for that fight? To beat the Nazis people rationed all kinds of goods and foods and turned over all kinds of resources to the US government. The sacrifice of those men and women was great. Yet we do not live the same way, and how much more important is our battle? "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28, NASB). And meeting the needs of others, seeking the well-being of our fellow man, showing love to all, is part of that battle. We could all of us give up some things and set aside more money for the benefit of those who lack.

And as for prayer. Oh how we fail the world through prayer. If there is any way in which we are truly failing the sick and suffering and poor it is through prayer. How often do we meet together to pray for the problems of the world? How often do we pray for wars to end, for diseases to be eradicated, for the hungry to have food, for the poor to find prosperity? The world's problems are too great for us ever to solve, but they are SIMPLE for God to solve. There is nothing too hard, nothing requiring too many resources, nothing impossible for God. In an instant, if He so chose, He could solve all the world's problems. So why do we not entreat upon Him to do so? Why do we not devote ourselves to pray for our suffering and burdened race? What a difference could be made if the church as a whole humbly sought through prayer for God to put an end to the problems that plague this world.

But the problem is that we really don't think our prayers will make that big of a difference. We really don't think that through our prayers God will change the course of history. Maybe He will provide a job, keep us safe on the highway, heal our sick family members through our prayers. But cure AIDS? End ethnic strife? Put poverty to death? We don't really believe that God can do those things. Or at least that He will do those things. But He certainly can, and He certainly might, and as such we should be begging Him all the more fervently to accomplish those ends.

As followers of Christ we should be the leading advocates for those who suffer in this world. We should lead the way in sacrifice and certainly through prayer. And yet we fail, and in so doing we fail to show the world the love of Christ that it so desperately needs and, even if it does not know it, so desperately desires.

It's about time we change that.