Ignorance is...not bliss.

Every now and then I'll see one of those commercials on TV telling me that for less than $1 a day I can save a child's life, or put them through school, or something along those lines. I'll see the pictures and feel bad for them and the environment in which they live, but then the commercial will end and I won't think too much about them after that. Besides, what can $20-30 a month really do? Put food on the table for a week, maybe two? Buy a school textbook? (I'm back in school now and I've learned that will get you about the first two chapters). I mean really, what kind of difference can it make?

Recently I bought a book titled 'Operation World.' It is over 700 pages and it contains information on every country in the world. Population, economy, politics, religion, etc. The purpose of the book is to be able to specifically pray for the entire world, one country at a time. I bought it as a resource and so that I could, specifically, pray for the entire world.

I started flipping through the pages a few days ago to see what kind of info it had. There's a brand new 2010 edition that just came out, but it was expensive so I bought the 2001 version. I know, I'm cheap, but I figured everything would be pretty similar. China would still be communist, Switzerland would still be riding the fence, and France would still be complaining about something. Anyway, I basically just wanted to see the areas in which I could be praying for each country. Of all the things I read, one stood out to me most. Income per person. The way the book is written is average annual income per person, then in parenthesis beside it, what percentage that is compared to the US. I read a few and then flipped to the US to see what these were all being compared to. Remember, this was 2001, so the amount will be a little lower than it is now, but I don't think by much. The average person in the US makes $31,380 per year. While some Western European countries were very similar to the US and some others throughout the world were more, most of the amounts I saw were less. Much less. Honduras-$660. India-$370. Kenya-$340. Madagascar-$250. Haiti-$310. Rwanda-$210. Vietnam-$310. Ethiopia-$100. These are all per year. Take your family out for dinner, go on a date, buy some gas...you're spending 6 months of someone's annual income in some of these countries.

David Platt talks in one of his sermons about Luke 16:19-31. It is a story of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. The rich man had anything and everything he ever wanted, with little regard to those around him who were less fortunate. The poor man, Lazarus, spent his days eating the scraps from the rich man's table. The two die and the rich man goes to hell while Lazarus goes to heaven. This is not implying that being rich will send you to hell or that being poor will send you to heaven. We are saved by grace, through faith and faith alone. But it does illustrate what can happen when we harden our hearts to others. So when I read that there are dozens of countries whose people make less than $1000 per year, I pray that I, and this country as a whole, have not become the rich man. Having anything and everything I want, with little regard to those who have much less.

Now, I'm not saying that every time I see a commercial asking me to give 72 cents per day that I should feel guilted into giving. "...for God loves a cheerful giver." -2 Corinthians 9:7. But I am saying that my eyes are starting to open to more than just what's in my little world. Whether it's the guy down on the street corner or the guy half-way across the world, I don't want my heart to continue to be hard towards them.

~JD