And the people of Israel also began to complain. “Oh, for some meat!” they exclaimed. “We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted. [Numbers 11:4b-5 (NLT)]
It’s a matter of perspective. When in Egypt, the Israelites hated being slaves to their cruel masters yet, every time they faced danger or difficulty, they longed to return there. This past March, my Florida friends wore gloves, jackets, and hats and complained of the cold when the temperature fell to 60 degrees. That same month, we were in the mountains of Colorado. When it got to 60 degrees there, off came the hats, gloves and jackets and people ate outside! Yesterday, my mother-in-law commented on the unseasonable heat in Illinois—it was 80 degrees! On the other hand, when it only got to 80 here in Florida, the weatherman called it “unseasonably cool.” It’s a matter of perspective.
“I’m starving!” we say when it’s been several hours since last eating, yet one in nine people suffer from chronic undernourishment. Truly starving, they may not even remember when last they ate anything. We complain about waiting thirty minutes in the physician’s waiting room, yet more than 1 billion people around the world have no access to health care. They’d gladly sit there for days if it meant getting medical attention. Weighing less than 93-pounds and standing less than 58-inches, my healthy and active 12-year old grand is called “small” for his age. In Africa or Asia, where nearly 51 million children are stunted in growth, he’d be the big kid in his class. Our well will be chlorinated this month and we’re annoyed about not having any water for several hours. A day’s inconvenience every few years sounds wonderful to those 663 million people have no access at all to safe drinking water. We women complain about the long lines in public restrooms yet one in three people lack access to any toilet, let alone the ten stalls at the theater! It’s just a matter of perspective.
A website called the Global Rich List puts one’s financial wealth in perspective. For example, here in the US, if you earned the median income of $51,939, you are in the top .28% of global wealth (note that decimal point)! While you’re not likely to see your name in Forbes magazine, that makes you the 16,839,173rd richest person on earth! Indeed, it is all a matter of perspective and, sometimes, we lose ours completely!
Father, forgive us when we look at life merely from our viewpoint—when we only notice or care about what directly touches our lives. Give us a global perspective so that we see the world from your viewpoint, not ours. Help us remember that the Good News is more than just your good word; it is also our good works! We have a world in need of both your message and our compassion. You have a world-sized role of each one of us—show us what you want us to do and how you want us to do it.
When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. [Mother Teresa]
Today is the National Day of Prayer. Back in 1952, during the Korean War, the Reverend Billy Graham challenged our nation’s leaders with these words: “What a thrilling, glorious thing it would be to see the leaders of our country today kneeling before Almighty God in prayer. What a thrill would sweep this country. What renewed hope and courage would grip the Americans at this hour of peril.” In response, members of the House and Senate introduced a joint resolution for an annual National Day of Prayer, “on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.” President Truman signed a bill proclaiming that a National Day of Prayer must be declared by each subsequent president at an appropriate date of his choice. In 1988, the law was amended and the first Thursday in May was designated as our National Day of Prayer. The day’s purpose is to unite people of all religions in prayer and to renew respect for God throughout the world. This being the United States, the constitutionality of this law has been challenged several times. Fortunately, the challenges have been unsuccessful—chalk one up for the good guys!
Yesterday, I wrote about unfounded fears. Although I’m a bit of a nervous flyer, I’d rather travel than stay home, so I pray and fly. While I’m a little nervous about heights, I’d rather ride than hike up the mountain, so I pray and ride the lifts. Since my little Ziggy-like guy can easily capture my irrational fears, they rarely plague me. It’s not fear of external things like plane crashes or gondola accidents, however, that disturb me. Instead, it’s the fear that happens when I focus on me instead of God. Will I be wounded, bothered, abandoned or tested? What if I don’t succeed, reach my goal, or make a good impression? Will I be welcome? What if I make a mistake?
Bad things happen, unforeseen events occur, and every one of us will eventually become a fatality statistic of some kind. A certain amount of fear or caution is wise in our unpredictable world. Most of us, however, are rather selective in our fears. We obsess over things about which we have little or no control and ignore those things over which we do. We don’t want to give up control to the pilot when the odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 11 million but trust our driving when the odds of a fatal car crash are 1 in 5 thousand! While we are far more likely to die of heart disease (1 in 6), we tend to obsess about things like dying in a terrorist attack (1 in 20 million). In actuality, we are fourteen times more likely to die in our bathtubs and twenty-five times more likely to die by choking on our food than in a terrorist attack, but we prefer not to think about that while bathing or eating.
Today, I thought again about that handful of dirt in the farmer’s hand and remembered the creation story. God scooped up a handful of soil, breathed life into it and made man. I don’t care whether the words are figurative or literal or if they support the creationist or evolutionary points of view. All I know is that God made something out of nothing then and continues to do so now!
I recently received an email from a Christian bookstore apologizing for one of their advertisements. Apparently, there had been objections to their “journaling” Bible ad, not because of the possible defacing of a Bible with doodles but because of the ad’s subject line: “Channel Your Inner Creative.” Customers protested their use of “inappropriate” New Age language. While the store’s goal had been to “embrace and celebrate the gift of creativity,” some people thought they were touting “channeling,” a New Age form of spiritualism. When channeling, people yield control of their discerning and reasoning faculties and enter a meditative or trancelike state in order to receive messages from a spiritual guide. When I first saw the ad, I gave no thought to its wording; I simply thought they were offering Bibles with extra wide margins so the reader could write notes or prayers on the pages. In their apology, the store promised to be “more vigilant and discerning” about their messaging. My first reaction upon receiving the apology was, ”Come on people—get a life!” I considered the complainers to be the kind of prissy judgmental people who give Christians a bad name.
Devotions of the Heart 