Pennies seem insignificant. I mean, would you toss a hundred dollar bill in a fountain? Heck no. But a penny? Well, what have you got to lose? Not much. Until you go to purchase a $1.01 pack of gum and realize you tossed the penny the fountain and made some dumb wish about having a million dollars. Suddenly, that little penny is very significant. Unless your wish for a million dollars came true (which it won't), no penny = no gum.
In a country of 5,797,000 people, Sierra Leone is "home" to 320,000 orphans. That means 5% of the country's population is made up of orphans.
India has a population of 1,200,000,000 people. A moderate estimate of Indian nationals enslaved/in debt bondage/etc is about 50,000,000 people. That means that 4% of the population is in slavery.
Then you go to the grocery store, or out to eat, or walk down the street and see people who are clearly hurting. When you start thinking in terms of numbers of hurting people- even the number we come across in our little spot in the world on a given day, it's overwhelming.
Completely overwhelming. How could what I ever do have any great effect on the world around me? How can one person change much? The daunting-ness of trying to feed hundreds of thousands of starving people in Africa, or provide work with a living wage for people in India, or provide homes to the gazillion orphans in the world paralyzes me. Sure I could help a few people- maybe even in to the double digits of people. But if I take in 10 orphans from Sierra Leone, I have barely made a dent in the orphan population.
I forget: In God's book, one matters. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to go find the one that wandered off and bring it back to the flock. (By the way, people, when we're compared to sheep in the Bible, it's not a complement. Sheep are more than fluffy white wool producers. They're stupid. Like, excessively-drunk redneck stupid. But that's another blog post.)
Every hurting person matters to God. He rejoices in each one who finds Him. Instead of trying to figure out how to solve a big huge problem... getting overwhelmed by the impossibility of solving that problem... and retreating to the couch with coffee and a movie, find even one person to show the love of Christ to.
One matters.
**numbers above are rough estimates from common sources.
In a country of 5,797,000 people, Sierra Leone is "home" to 320,000 orphans. That means 5% of the country's population is made up of orphans.
India has a population of 1,200,000,000 people. A moderate estimate of Indian nationals enslaved/in debt bondage/etc is about 50,000,000 people. That means that 4% of the population is in slavery.
Then you go to the grocery store, or out to eat, or walk down the street and see people who are clearly hurting. When you start thinking in terms of numbers of hurting people- even the number we come across in our little spot in the world on a given day, it's overwhelming.
Completely overwhelming. How could what I ever do have any great effect on the world around me? How can one person change much? The daunting-ness of trying to feed hundreds of thousands of starving people in Africa, or provide work with a living wage for people in India, or provide homes to the gazillion orphans in the world paralyzes me. Sure I could help a few people- maybe even in to the double digits of people. But if I take in 10 orphans from Sierra Leone, I have barely made a dent in the orphan population.
I forget: In God's book, one matters. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to go find the one that wandered off and bring it back to the flock. (By the way, people, when we're compared to sheep in the Bible, it's not a complement. Sheep are more than fluffy white wool producers. They're stupid. Like, excessively-drunk redneck stupid. But that's another blog post.)
Every hurting person matters to God. He rejoices in each one who finds Him. Instead of trying to figure out how to solve a big huge problem... getting overwhelmed by the impossibility of solving that problem... and retreating to the couch with coffee and a movie, find even one person to show the love of Christ to.
One matters.
**numbers above are rough estimates from common sources.
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