Hearing His heartbeat
Mac Swift recently wrote about charity, which forcefully reminded me of something buried in the recesses of my mind & heart.
In May 2001, when I was still in college, the World Evangelical Fellowship (now known as the World Evangelical Alliance) held their 11th General Assembly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The night sessions, where selected WEF leaders were asked to speak, were open to the public. I attended a few of those, and talked them over with God in my pen-and-paper journal.
One in particular I've never forgotten. Clive Carver, president of World Relief, showed a video clip of the conditions in Sierra Leone which broke my heart.
Here is part of what I wrote that night:
- Tonight this guy from World Relief Fund spoke on Mark 1:40-42 that Jesus was filled with compassion when He saw the poor and was willing to reach out and touch the poor. And he showed us a film/video from Sierra Leone.
Oh God, two-month-old babies with their hands cut off, young boys with one or two legs cut off, children describing how their parents were beheaded before their eyes... "atrocities" just doesn't begin to describe the horrors and the devastating sights. They suffer and they live in a war-torn country, in rubble and shacks with mud floors -- I, who usually don't cry in movies, who am not easily moved to tears by pictures on a screen -- I wept for all their pain and suffering. For an innocent baby who will grow up without a hand -- the meaninglessness of it.
And then I wept because I live in comfort and, yes, wealth compared to those people; I have so much and still don't think I have enough, and they have so little. I live surrounded by things and -- it suddenly seemed so meaningless to have so much. Like, what do I need so much stuff for? I spend tons of money accumulating things when people around me are suffering. That money could be put to better use -- to help make their lives a little easier, alleviate their suffering.
O Father, it was an emotional moment; but don't let me cry a bit, then walk away and be seduced back into a life of self-indulgence and wanting more things. Don't ever let me lose sight of how meaningless my stores of possessions look when my lifestyle is placed side-by-side with the poverty-stricken, suffering people. Don't let me bury what I've seen tonight until it becomes merely an uncomfortable memory.
[...]
O God, help me to live with a perspective from You of what's important and what's not. You know I'm surrounded by a world to which image and appearance is so important, a world to which owning material things and earning a high income and occupying a top position is so crucial in commanding respect and winning acceptance. But God, there's the other side of the world where people are dying and starving and suffering from disease and having their lives -- and bodies -- torn apart by war. They are easy to forget and shove out of sight because I don't live in their midst. But help me to remember them. And help me to ignore the petty judgements and ridiculous standards of the world around me. I don't want to compete on their level, Lord. I don't want to get caught up in the whole "who can earn bigger, climb higher, own more, look prettier and younger" thing. It means nothing when I see a young baby girl with a stump where a small, perfectly formed hand with tiny fingernails should be.
Months before this, I'd already watched Mike Todd's drive to get bloggers to buy a goat for a Third World family through World Vision, and seen Darren Rowse's idea of holding a 24-hour Blogathon to raise funds for International Needs. Coincidence? I think not.
God is interesting, really. Here He knows I'm getting into a steadier state with my finances, and THEN He reminds me of the words I'd said that night. Before this, when I was struggling to clear my credit card debt and get my woeful money management skills in line, He didn't say a thing, simply kept quiet. I think that's very interesting.
Anyway, one of my commitments this year is to do something useful with my money instead of spending it all on myself and getting into debt to boot. I haven't decided where the money will go or what proportion of it will be set aside for this, but I do know that I want to answer God's call to listen & respond to His heartbeat.