Life in a Dumpster

It was late last night as I was getting ready for bed. Part of my nightly routine is to snuggle with this guy: Torie before I shut him out in the hall (he turns vicious at night!). While I was holding him I heard a strange noise coming from down below. It turned out to be a litter of kittens that had recently been born...in the dumpsters next to my apartment. We peered out my window for a few minutes as my heart slowly began to break. It was raining, cold, and they were hungry. Torie was apathetic to their pitiful meows coming from 5 stories below. And as I studied him I began to realize something. He should be down there too! He was a street cat that someone picked up when he was a baby, dying cuz his mother abandoned him. He's been given a new life; a wonderful life full of good food, toys, warm beds, and loads of love. But because he was removed from his old life he's forgotten it all- it is almost as if he doesn't even speak those kitten's language. He's just apathetic, and truly he's pretty ungrateful for the life I've given him...if we were honest.

And as I crawled into my warm bed, surrounded by my things, I realized that I am often exactly the same as my terrible kitty. And I come from a country that is full of apathetic, ungrateful people as well.

There is a scene that stands out in my mind from the movie: Hotel Rwanda. It is as the American videographer is soon to the leave the country, and the main character has a glimmer of hope that his people will receive help when the footage he's shot is seen on the news. Here's what is said:

"I'm glad that you've shot this footage and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have chance that people may intervene." "Yeah, and if no one intervenes? Is it still a good thing to show?" "How can they not intervene, when they witness such atrocities?" "I think if people see this footage they will say: 'Oh my god, that's horrible.' And they will go on eating their dinners..."

A few years ago I had the chance to attend Urbana (HUGE missions conference- pretty amazing) with the youth group from the church I grew up in. I loved my time there and took every opportunity I could to douse myself in the world. What I mean by that is that I wanted to feel the hurt across the nations. To bear witness to their lives. To glimpse the suffering that the majority of people live within. So, I went to seminars on AIDS, on street kids, on poverty, on orphans, etc. It was difficult and it was a very "raw" time for me. One evening we were sharing as a group what we'd done that day. I shared and one of the leaders of the group responded: "Wow! I couldn't go to those sorts of meetings. My heart can't handle knowing those things..." I was a bit in shock, because as followers of God we should walk as His Son did. He went into those sorts of places and was encountered with every kind of suffering and pain this world knows. How can we close our hearts and eyes to such things? And truly it is only the people in the West who even have the chance or the possibility to do such a thing. Every other place in the world is rampant with disease, poverty, and suffering like you and I've never known or witnessed. It is simply a part of life.

And so, like my cat, we found a way to remove that from our lives and make ourselves comfortable. We insulate our life with every convenience there is, and wrap ourselves up in it (I speak just as much to myself here). And we lose it all. How can we proclaim God's love if we're not living it? How can we manifest Him to the nations if we aren't willing to get our feet dirty? How can we testify to His salvation if we don't even know what the world is in need of being saved from? How...?

Maybe yes, you are removed from poverty, disease, and other atrocities, but look around you! There is despair, hopelessness, lostness, darkness in need of everything you have inside your heart! Don't wander so far away from this world that you forget to speak their language. Don't insulate yourselves to the point that you grown apathetic. And please, please don't forget where every good thing that is in your life came from- live with a grateful heart, full of praise!

I challenge myself here. And I challenge you.
Live unto the Lord; your God and Creator.
Be His hands. His feet. His voice. His heart.
Just be...HIS!