A Christian publisher once told me, ‘You shouldn’t always write about missionary Christians like Gladys Aylward and Amy Carmichael. Why don’t you share about some normal, everyday Christians who live in the suburbs and work for IBM? Those kinds of Christians are just as important as the ones who go to the mission field. Don’t just focus on Christians who had “special calling” to go and change the world.’
Well, sorry to be so blunt, but most ‘normal, everyday’ Christians in the Western world are living pleasure-seeking, self-absorbed lives. Just think about it. Are we, as the majority of American Christians, pouring ourselves out for the lost and the least, or are we lying on our couches, eating pizza, and watching reality TV? Millions of hurting, destitute, hopeless people are crying out for someone to help them. But sadly, we are frighteningly similar to the wealthy Christians during the Holocaust who sat comfortably in church singing hymns at the tops of their lungs to drown out the anguished cries of the thousands of Jews who passed by in cattle cars on their way to death camps. We, like those Christians in Germany, are turning a deaf ear to the cries of the desperate.
No matter what my publisher friend says, we don’t need more of that kind of Christian. We need more Gladys Aylwards, Amy Carmichaels, and Jackie Pullengers. Those women didn’t have a ‘special’ calling on their lives. Rather, they were among the few who actually recognized and obeyed the sacred call that Christ has placed upon every single man or woman who claims to know him.
Matthew 25:31-46
…Modern Christianity goes out of its way to convince us that the Christian life is all about us.The majority of today’s Bible studies, sermons, and Christian books causes us to focus on what we are feeling, what we are needing, and what we are struggling with. Here is the publisher’s description of that popular woman’s book Captivating. ‘The message of Captivating is this: Your heart matters more than anything else in all creation.’ And what is meant by the term ‘your heart?’ According to the author of the book, ‘The heart is who we are. The real self. Me. My heart is me. The real me. Your heart is you.’
So in other words, you matter more than anything else in all creation.
Really?
Do you matter more than the 143 million orphans around the world, starving, scared, abandoned, and alone? Do you matter more than the millions of Latin American street children who hide in alleys and old buildings to escape the ‘death squads’ of corrupt policemen who hunt them down for sport? Do you matter more than than the millions of elementary school-aged girls kept as slave prostitutes in South America? Do you matter more than the millions of starving kids who live in dumps and eat buzzard soup or dead dogs to survive? Do you matter more than the countless African boys who have seen their parents killed and been forced to rape or kill to stay alive? Do you matter more than the scores of six-year-old African girls who have been repeatedly brutalized and raped by HIV-infected men?
While American Christians are preoccupied with healing their own inner wounds, being set free to be their true selves, and fighting to be noticed and appreciated for their own unique qualities, staggering numbers of people around the world are living in such misery, squalor, and pain that we cannot even imagine.
….Most of us would be horrified at the thought of ignoring a cattle car of screaming Jews as they were hauled away to their deaths. But we do it every single day when we turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the millions of destitute and dying who urgently need our help. We do it when we spend all our living on self-indulgent pleasures instead of on rescuing abandoned children. We do it when we go on luxury cruises instead of outreaches to the poor. We do it when we have movie marathons instead of prayer vigils for the oppressed. We do it every time we make our own comforts and happiness the highest priority. We do it whenever we fall for the idea that we are the most important people in all creation.
