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Why are you here?
The very important question…why are you on this earth? What is God’s plan for you? Are you here to just acquire as many toys as you can? Are you here to just safely live until you die? Or are you here to make a difference? I want you to make a difference. I want you to find the passion that God has placed in your heart and make a change in this world. Because the truth of the matter is you can make a difference – one child, one person at a time.
I have been told many times that “You can’t save them all!”. I’m going to start here because it is probably the statement that drives me the craziest. I know I can’t save them all. There are at least 147 million orphans, 27 million children being used in the sex trafficking trade, 7.6 million children will die this year from mostly preventable diseases. People are starving all over the world. People are drinking dirty water. People are dying in needless wars. There are so many people needing help that it just seems insurmountable….unfixable.
So what does that mean in regard to the rest of us? James 1:27 commands us to care for the orphan and the widow. Matthew 25:40 tells us that whatever we do to the least of these we do to God. There are many verses telling us to help our fellow man, to use caring words, to do as Jesus would do. But we aren’t doing that? Why aren’t we as Christians doing more? Why do we just show up on Sunday and give our percentage and think that is enough? Why do we live safe little lives? I believe God is expecting more from us. I believe we would do more if we understood the need. If it became more than just a figure to us, we would do something. If there was a face attached to that story, it would make a difference. How many times have we just changed the channel when we became uncomfortable with a story being told? Flipped the t.v. off because a commercial made us feel like maybe we should do more? When there is a name attached to that story, your heart hurts. These are not just faces of some unknown children. God knows every one of these children. What if one of them was yours?
I know a little girl who weighed 6 pounds at 6 months. I know a family, the Hills, that had decided to take in “the least of these” and try to save them. Their mission statement is “To comfort always, to relieve often, and to save sometimes.” Words that break my heart – to save sometimes. Do you have a mission statement? If not, why not? What do you want your life to say? What do you want to accomplish that has eternal ramifications? Because the Hills had a mission statement, they took in this little girl who was starving to death. Because they followed the leadings of God’s tugging at their heart, I have a beautiful 2 year old who brings so much joy to my life. They saw beyond what the orphanage saw, a sick little girl who wouldn’t make it and wasn’t worth the effort. Instead the Hills saw a fighter, a little girl with big brown eyes, who deserved a chance at life.
Organizations like the Hills are the organizations I want to bring light to. Not everyone is called to adopt, but Love Without Boundaries and the New Hope Foundation have ways for you to sponsor orphans. You can spend $35 a month a help pay for foster care, surgeries, schooling, there are so many ways to help. I talk about organizations like those two and World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse because I have a personal connection to them. The truth is there are many organizations doing wonderful things all over the world – in Uganda, in Europe, in Ethiopia, in China, the list goes on and on. You can choose whatever your heart leads you to – new wells, schools, supplies, educations, hospitals, the list goes on and on. We as a family quit buying gifts for grandparents at the holidays instead we purchase some gift through World Vision or Samaritan’s Purse sending goats or chickens, or wheelchairs to needy people in 3rd world countries. The grandparents love it and the kids love choosing a gift that has such great meaning.
I believe Christians would help if they could see a tangible way to help. Who wouldn’t give up ordering out pizza once a month to save a child’s life. When you stand before God, your judge, what will your life say? The truth is you are saved by grace. God’s perfect grace and Christ’s dying on the cross are the only ways to heaven. Nothing you can do will get you into heaven, but God asks more from you than to just exist. Truly He is asking more. Are you listening? Have you felt that tug at your heart? Can you hear His gentle whispering to help your fellow man? It can be as simple as taking a meal to a widow in your church, staying with a single mother’s children for an hour or so, mowing someone’s lawn. You just have to open your eyes to the needs around you and open your heart to the stirrings from God.
We, as Christians, have taken our eyes off of what really matters. We’ve turned our eyes to graven images – the new car, the bigger house, the better schools, the bigger job. Our eyes should not be on things of this world. When you step out of your comfort zone and trust what God is saying to you, amazing things happen. I know this for a fact. The moments when I stepped beyond my fears and took a big leap of faith were when God brought me to my biggest blessings.
Psalm 119:37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.
As I’ve said before, atrocities all around the world are happening right now, this very moment. We are the richest group of Christians to ever be alive. We have more at our disposal then we could ever possibly use.
Max Lucado asked in his book Outlive Your Life Had you been in Germany in WWII, would you have taken a stand against Hitler? Had you lived in the South during the civil rights conflict, would you have taken a stand against racism? Those questions are easy to answer yes to. They are hypothetical.
Yes, we would like to think we would have done something, but it is just as likely you would have been afraid to get involved. Afraid that somehow it would hurt your family or that your family would have to do without. When your grandchildren ask you what you did in a time when children were suffering, millions upon millions of children were dying from preventable diseases, children were starving and drinking dirty water, children were being traded as sex slaves or working in the mines in Guinea, and children were dying in orphanages. When they say, “What did you do? How did you help? You had so much. Why didn’t you share?” What will you be able to say? What lessons will you leave for your children and grandchildren? These are questions that God will one day ask you too. How will you answer? Hope is fading all around the world for so many. So many children think there is no way out. So many hurting souls think that there is no one who cares, nothing that will change their situation. We are called by God to be that hope. What better way to prove the love of Christ? Won’t you consider being someone’s hope?
