I find it difficult to make short posts on these things that I am becoming more and more passionate about. Sorry.
These Ideas are more thoughts from Catalyst as well as from a video by Rob Bell called Rich.
When you hear the phrase God Bless America, what do you think? Do you think yes, please Lord bless us, help us to be able to find food tomorrow, help us not to get sick for the water we drink and help my kids not to be killed on the way to school.
Maybe that was a bit extreme, but hasn't God already blessed America? In the bible when God blessed people it was so that they could bless others and give some of it away. I think we are long overdue to give. Here are some statistics (according to Rob Bell) about how rich we in America are.
"America is 6% of the worlds population and yet we consume more than 40% of the world's resources."
"Only 8% of the people in the world have a car" When was the last time that you knew someone who had no car at all. We have three.
How much change do you have in your pocket, I had $0.52 not counting the bills in my wallet. "1 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day"
"800 Million people won't eat today" I just had a rice crispy treat and when I run out, I will just go to Walmart and get more.
Here is the thing that I really wanted to talk about. "1 billion people in the world have no access to clean water". We take this for granted, if there were a more severe level of taking something for granted I think water would be in that level.
The thing that I keep thinking about are the people in parts of Africa where water is so scarce and disease specifically AIDS run wild. People have the choice of walking around 10 miles to get clean water or drinking out of a mud puddle, or a river that is also the town sewer. This only further helps the spread of disease.
"Experts say that it would cost 20 Billion dollars to provide food and nutrition to all of the hurting people around the world, This is the same amount that Americans spend on ice cream every year"
So what do you think, Has God Blessed America? And if so, what are we going to do about it?
I have probably raised more questions than answers here. My next post will highlight what we each can do to help.
Shine on,
Tim
2 comments:
If that icecream thing is true, it makes us look really bad.
Amazingly enough. In the midst of all these great riches that we have, we are missing out on so much. When we consume all of the resources that we generate and even more than that (such as money from working plus debt) we end up stuck in this cycle of endless wants. The more we buy, the the more we have to keep up with. All these wonderful things end up being more of a burden than anything. But....when you start giving instead it is amazing how much the burden is lifted. Could it be that maybe God did not design us to have so much, and that is why it feels so good to give to others? We are missing out on the freedom of not having to worry about 30 bills a month and what to do with all that stuff! Therefore: giving=freedom. Jesus' example was to have the essentiels that he needed, gather some really close friends to assist him, and set out to help as many people as he could. Now that is freedom!!!
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