Sunday, January 9, 2011

Are you okay with this?

"The event was timed to coincide with World AIDS Day, and we watched a video documenting the devastating effects of AIDS. Eight thousand people will die from AIDS today. Then, after all the stories and numbers and faces, the documentary posed this question: "Are you okay with this?"

United Nations health and food organizations calculate that twenty-five thousand people throughout the developing world die every day from starvation and malnutrition. Are you okay with this? There are a hundred thirty thousand children up for adoption at any given time in the United States, and millions more children worldwide are without families. Are you okay with this? A child dies from drinking contaminated water every twenty-one seconds. Are you okay with this? That question can be and must be asked of all suffering and every injustice. Are you okay with this?

Most of us are okay with it. And we're okay with it simply because it's an issue without a name or a face. We've never held someone who is starving to death. No one in our family has needlessly died from contaminated water. We don't know anybody who has been kidnapped and sold into slavery. And none of our family member sleeps on the streets. But once the issue has a name and a face, it changes everything, doesn't it? God knows each of those names. God knows each of those faces. And it breaks His heart.

So let me ask the question: are you okay with this?

If you are in Christ and Christ is in you, you cannot be okay with suffering or injustice or starvation. Why? Because His heart is in you. And His heart beats for the suffering, the victim, the poor, and the needy."

- Mark Batterson, Primal

1 comment:

  1. Are you trying to brag about what a good and fast reader you are? LOL! I love you, Jim, and I, too, have been challenged by some of the books on your list. (How come you haven't passed on the others to me?) God is using these authors to speak to us and move us closer to His heart. I'm so thankful to be moving in that direction with you.

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