Typical Day

Originally posted May 27, 2007

It was pretty hot today, my family went to church, then came home for lunch, then went out again to the mall, just to hang out. We didn't buy much, just looked around, stopped for dinner. Pretty typical.

Yesterday we got our tax refund check. We talked about using some of it for a vacation, or maybe for a down payment on a new car this fall when my oldest daughter gets her license. Pretty ordinary.

Tonight I sat down here at my computer to surf the web, see what's going on. Pretty normal.
On my home page I noticed a story about women who have been rape victims in Darfur. I passed that one by to read a story about the ratings for the latest installment of American Idol. Again, pretty typical, ordinary, normal.

Then I went back to the story on Darfur. A typical, ordinary, normal day for a refugee in Darfur might include hunger, lack of latrine facilities, sickness, disease, rape, death. When I hear these stories, sometimes I am moved to compassion, instant prayer, despair over the state of our world, where human beings could actually do these things to each other while so many of us just go about our business, oblivious to it. Other times, indifference which allows me to wall off my uncomfortable feelings about such things and allows me to continue on with my day to day life with a shrug and a "How terrible. What should we have for dinner?" creeps in and I somehow become complicit in the slaughter. It is in part self preservation, for if I allowed myself to really think and feel about these atrocities for long, I am afraid that my heart would be broken into a million pieces that couldn't be repaired. Yet I know that it also allows me to go on selfishly, to dwell on my own problems (which in my own head seem huge, but when compared to what goes on in literally millions of lives, are completely inconsequential.) It allows me to continue to life inside of myself, in my own universe, where I am at the center and the relative importance of events is judged by how these events affect me.

I can't spend my life with my nose in the newspaper and my eyes glued to CNN. Because what happens to me and my loved ones is important. Each is precious in His sight (Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies ? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7). I am just as precious to God as the baby dying of malaria in Africa or the woman grieving the loss of that child. But spending 5 or 10 minutes a day to pay attention and feel real compassion and keeping those events in prayer is good medicine, a reminder of how good I have it. Of how much power and influence I wield as an American, how wealthy I truly am on a global scale (If you have assets worth more than $61,ooo you are among the world's richest 10% of adults. Collectively that 10% owns 85% of the world's wealth. World Vision Newsletter, Summer 2007, pg.11).

And how awesome is our God, that at the same exact time He can hear my prayer that my kids will get to school safely, He can hear the prayer of the woman in Darfur praying for her child to get well, and for a teenager who has found herself pregnant, unmarried & terrified to tell her parents, and for the man in India who just wants to make enough money to feed his family today.

Our God is anything but typical, ordinary, or normal. Romans 8:38-39 says "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The world may fall down around us, and yet through Jesus Christ we cannot be separated from His love. And that holds true for all 6 billion of us.

Awesome, indeed.