How Do I Respond?

Posted on 10.01.06 in Faith and there are 10 comments.

I’ve been listening to the new song by Jars of Clay over and over. I wrote about it the other day. It’s called “Oh My God” and it’s probably the most powerful song I’ve ever heard.

This part, in particular, really gets me:

“All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give
Babies underneath their beds
Hospitals that cannot treat
All the wounds that money causes,
All the comforts of cathedrals
All the cries of thirsty children - this is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers - this is our greatest offense

Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God”

It’s a song that, when it ends, begs me to turn off my iPod and pray. I find myself praying that God would remove my callousness. I pray that He’d free me from my selfishness and greed. I pray that I’d cry with those in need and weep for those in pain. I pray that I’d stop talking and start changing.

Changing me. Changing what I do. Changing how I respond to need.

Frankly, it’s hard. But it makes me mad and sad that I think it’s hard. How can I know that this very minute there is a child somewhere in the world, many children all over the world, starving - in their mother’s arms and not be moved to action?

Ever since I became a mother, nothing cut so close to home as stories involving the mother/child relationship.

“All the cries of thirsty children, this is our inheritance. All the rage of watching mothers, this is our greatest offense..Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God”

That line absolutely wrecks me. And I desperately want it to move me beyond tears and beyond talking.

It’s not going to, though.

Too often, I wait for other things to move me. A sermon. A song. A book. A movie.

But I think God brings those things into our lives, not to move us to action, but to bring us to the line. The line where we, ourselves, have to decide that there are things in this world that are more important than our comfort.

It’s so hard to put into action, though. How do we do it? How do we respond to the need we see around us without carrying the weight of the world?

How can I sit here in my house with lights on in rooms I don’t use and food spoiling in my refrigerator, knowing the need that is in the world? What is it in me that can flip the channel when I see an ad for an organization that raises money for starving children?

If I was in a region of the world hit by famine, I wouldn’t sit next to a hungry mother and child and eat a Big Mac Meal and not share. But isn’t that what I’m essentially doing?

What do you do? How do you reconcile it all? What is the right response?

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“How do you reconcile it all?”

I don’t think it can be reconciled; not in terms we can understand, at least. Why does one person find contentment in a life that leaves them starving, nourished by diseased water while another gripes at not being able to drink the right bottled spring water when they have the whim?  Our ingratitude (and I include myself in that “our") rankles me.

There are many whose hearts are crushed by words and messages like these. I also cannot understand how a heart so crushed does not respond with more than a tear.  But does God crush our hearts, demanding we leave all we have in hand to live as they do, working to help them?  Maybe.  Maybe He calls as He did to Teresa, to live among the poor in India.  Maybe He calls us to use what we have, where we are.  It is so hard to know, so hard to see beyond our own bias and self-interest, to hear the Spirit’s guidance, when the potential answer is so alien to where we are now.

I’m pragmatic: when I see a task, I simply begin it as best I can and move at the pace God allows.  For me, God has made me to where I am eaten up if I leave something undone when I could have done something, and that drives me to act - be it in great ways or the smallest of words, I have to offer what I can.  Still, I can only begin to tell of the things that still eat at me, even years later, because I withheld what God gave me to offer for reasons of self-interest. That’s the other thing God gives me, the memory to recall my failings - which I must us as a motivation to act, not a paralyzing weight.

Not sure if I’m helping you find answers to the questions above.  I struggle with them, too.

I don’t know.

If I support two children through Compassion International.  Is that enough?  If I get others through my ministry of music to do the same, is that enough?

Is the feeling I get from the end of the song the Holy Spirit inside of me asking me to have mercy? to give? to show compassion?  is that just a good sign that His Spirit is still alive in me and I should be comforted that I’m moved to tears? 

Or it that not enough?  Should I give more of my money? my time? to more things/people/places?

Euphrony and Ryan,
It sounds like you guys are about in the same place I am. I have more questions than answers.

I suppose one thing that I do know is that I need to be thankful. Everyday - for every blessing - even the blessings that are taken away. It’s so easy to complain in our culture, but we really don’t have anything to complain about.

Part of the problem is that I compare myself to others, those around me, instead of just listening to the Holy Spirit. When we first moved to Waco, we moved from The Woodlands, we were both working and we didn’t have any children yet. Most of our friends were missionaries or worked for the church. We felt rich - guilty at times.

Now, we’re about to have three kids, our friends are business people or missionaries with rich parents and we feel, at times, like we “need” a bigger house or a better house. In reality, our little home fits our family just fine. Our circumstances haven’t really changed, but because I compare myself to those around me, I feel the need to keep up. If I lived in my hometown (one of the poorest in the country) I’d feel rich. And if I grew up knowing Mother Teresa, I imagine I’d feel pretty wealthy and selfish.

Perhaps part of the solution is to stay more informed about the world around me and the plight of those in need and the ways that I can help.

Great point Kat- if you surround yourself in a culture you can easily become entrenched in it.  The solution- avoiding the culture is not really a solution either.  Look at those people in the church who avoid hanging with anyone outside the church- that creates a ‘relevance’ problem as well as a ‘usefulness to the kingdom’ problem.  So it’s obviously a balance.

I wanted to share with you that this morning I was driving to a men’s book club meeting around 7am.  I was later than normal as my alarm never went off (despite being set properly- doh) and was listening to Jars’ Oh My God.  I was focusing on the weight of the lyrics and thinking how inconsequential my life is and even what I do with my music and in volunteering is at the church.  Putting a perspective on all that I thought matters on a given day in comparison to what a mother feels when she can’t get help that could save her child’s life.  I was totally overwhelmed and spaced out and drove through a school zone.  The crossing guard ran out and stopped me with a very ‘upset’ look on her face.  I mouthed ‘I’m sorry’, but she didn’t seem to understand.  To think I could have killed a child right in my neighborhood is kind of ironic in the scheme of things.

Dave,
Yes, I was alone in the car recently (a rarity) so I was listening to Jars’ Oh My God as well and I had one of those moments where I realized that I didn’t really recall driving the past 4 miles or so. I was just so deep in thought about the song and my life that I was completely not focused.

Bottom line: Oh My God by Jars of Clay is NOT a good car song.

I think you’re right about balance. I think that balance is called the Holy Spirit. I don’t think we can really make sense of it all just on our own. I don’t think that there is one response that is appropriate. I think it’s a matter of walking daily with the Lord and listening to what He has me do each day.

By the way, what book are you reading?

We just finished ‘For Men Only’, which was supposed to help us understand our wives better through surveys of thousands of women.  I’d say we found mixed results among the group- us men tend to be skeptical of books like that and think we know our wives better than we really do.  But I’ve been trying to apply some of what I learned in the book and I believe it has helped me a little.  My wife is reading ‘For Women Only’ so hopefully she’ll be able to figure me out as well

Now we’re starting our next book Chazown- don’t know anything about it yet- just ordered it on Amazon yesterday. 

Thanks for asking!  BTW, I have really been enjoying your blog.  I have shown my wife a few of your mommy-oriented postings and she particularly laughed at the mommy-reality show contest one.  It seems we are all in a similar stage of our life (we ourselves have 4 little ones- ages ranging from 1 to 7).

Kat - I find myself grappling with these sorts of questions a lot lately, also. And like everyone else here, I don’t have any answer either, and maybe that’s a good thing. It keeps us wondering, and asking, and engaged, instead of sure of ourselves and settled in our ways.

I’m afraid that sometimes I wear myself out, exhaust myself emotionally being discouraged with my own lack of action, and my own “riches” compared to so many people’s poverty. Then I end up even more discouraged and self-destructive—and that doesn’t help anyone.

I think we have to be careful not to act out of some sense of guilt or shame, either. It’s not a sin to be born in a country which is civilized and wealthy, and I think we would completely miss the point if we decided the solution was always to sell everything we have and move to some third-world country. But then again, when I think thoughts like that, I think maybe that’s just me rationalizing my way out of doing something I should be doing… [sigh].

So lately I’ve been finding myself doing what Euphrony describes—stealing little bits of time to do things that I know are right, and that I know I’m called to do, and throwing caution to the wind, instead of trudging steadily forward in self-loathing and “I can’t make a difference anyway” type inaction.

When I went to the Compassion International website a few months ago to sponsor a child, I quickly became overwhelmed as I looked through all the pictures of the kids. It was quite an overload of feeling, and I hate to admit how strong the temptation was, after a little while, to just close my browser window and say “I can’t do anything to make a difference, there are so many kids, and they are just the tip of the iceberg of all the kids in the world...”. What an absolutely insane, unthinkable reaction, right?

But in the end, I made myself stick with it, and focused on the task at hand, and with my wife’s help, managed to narrow my search down. Okay, I ended up with two children instead of one, but at least I didn’t allow the temptation to be overwhelmed kick me completely out of doing something.

My wife and I consider our sponsored children an absolutely solemn and critical responsibility between ourselves and God—like a vow or covenant, if you will. Much more than just a little something to assuage our guilt, but not something to make us get all proud and self-satisfied just because we’re doing something, either.

I guess we have to be balanced enough to live in that space, between calloused indifference and overwhelmed inaction. I know that I always flip quickly past the TV channels with the pictures of starving kids, not because I want to turn a blind eye, but because there is literally a limit to how much grief and suffering I can witness. God wired us that way, so let’s not get down on ourselves for having these limitations. Perhaps small, attainable, and practical steps are a good place to start.

Oh, and one more thing that bears repeating, over and over.

This is to you, Kat, but also to any other parent who reads this—the most sacred charge God has put in your life, apart from devotion to Him, is in those children that He has given you and your husband to care for.

It would not impress me (or God, I dare say) if you save all the children in the world at the expense of failing to do all you can with those He has put right there in front of you. Do not grow weary in well-doing, and do not allow people to look down on you or get to you with comments or attitudes.

Every bit of careful attention you give, every bit of doting and encouragement and loving, is you spending the precious currency of time that God has given you in the best way you possibly can.

When you’ve completed that faithfully, and only then, you can concern yourself with other things in the outside world at large. (Sorry, hope that doesn’t sound too harsh or preachy—I just want to make sure the obvious priorities are addressed, so that you parents won’t be bearing some sense of guilt because so much of your time and energy is being devoted to the daily tasks involved in raising your own families).

As somebody whose parents gave me the very best they had, I thank God every day that I grew up safe, secure, and well-adjusted. Any success I have, any difference I make in the world, is in a very real sense the logical result of the sacrifices my parents made for me.

So even though much of your investment might seem to be more in the future world than the current one, it’s critically important. You will literally be multiplying your own effectiveness many times over through those you are investing in now.

Hammer’s right in that it is a good thing we don’t know the answers.  If we knew, then we would move on.  It is in searching for the answers, I believe, that we progress in our journey to change this world.  God never told us to check our brains at the door and never question Him; rather, He tells us to come to Him for the answers.  Ask away, anything you want, and bring it to God (not yourself or man) and you will find a path, if not the outright answer.

One of the little things I’m working on right now is supporting Blood:Water Mission, a group championed by Jars of Clay and Sara Groves.  With a donation of one dollar they can provide clean drinking water to one African for one year.  One dollar.  One man.  One year.  My wife and I had already allocated the money we had planned for giving this year, and given most of it, but this is something we are praying over adding in.  If not this year, then the next.  But, as we wait to see what we can give them monitarily, I have done the least I can do.  Their banner is prominantly placed on my blog.  I’ll tell people about them.  In this way I can help.  I just try to do what I can; what God has set for me to do.

C-Hammer - Good words. We have three precious Compassion children - Sophanie, Sayriel and Sathish. We’ve had Sathish for about 5 years now and I absolutely adore him. He’s 13 years old and is just a profoundly precious boy. He calls us his Auntie and Uncle and he prays often for his “sisters” - my daughters. He draws pictures of them in his letters and....I’m just really proud of him and I hope that perhaps in a few years, we can take a sponsor trip to India to meet him.

I don’t feel like I know Sophanie and Sayriel as well. We haven’t had them as long and they’re younger so their letters are a bit more basic, but I look forward to each one.

Compassion is a wonderful ministry and I’ve been very, very pleased with the way they run their organization. Whenever there is a political issue or natural disaster in one of our children’s countries, they always send a note to comfirm that our children are alright.

Speaking of children, you’re absolutely right about the importance of my day to day job as a Mommy. It’s always good to be reminded!

Euphrony - I’ve been meaning to check out Blood:Water Mission. I’ve heard a lot about it and it sounds like they’re doing a great work.

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