Overwhelmed

The Internet overwhelms me. So does the newspaper. So does NPR. So would the myriad news shows on TV, if I watched them.

It's not that I am overwhelmed by the power of individual stories. I expect, even welcome, being moved to emotional and "actional" compassion by what I read or see.

Rather, I am overwhelmed by the vastness and, for lack of a better word, variety of it all.

Last week, for instance, in maybe 48 hours, I was informed of the plight of slave workers picking cocoa beans, of sixty thousand Russian women who have been taken into the sex trade (also mostly as slaves), and of a group of unfortunate tenants who had been rented houses that the "landlord" didn't own. Local and distant, we are talking about people with real needs. Somehow, they must be served. And we all know that times are getting tougher; many more people will face legitimate plights right in our midst.

When I read or hear reports like these; when I reflect on the work that we have done on behalf of several families who have faced strong difficulties in our own fellowship in recent months; when I consider the growing daily need for help that is expressed at the doors of the Dakota House (to which we have more than doubled our church tithe for November and December); yes, when I think on all of these needs and those we will still yet hear of in this season and beyond, I wonder first of all, is it OK for me to buy ANYTHING?

Obviously, that is not an altogether reasonable question. But what I really mean is this: I want to do unto others as I would have done unto me, and yet there simply is no way that I can do rightly and generously unto them all. The worldwide scope we have been given through our many media outlets puts us in a position unlike any the world has ever known. We may literally know too much. And in knowing so much, it becomes easy to be distracted, pulled in a thousand different directions.

In circumstances like these, I think faithfulness becomes increasingly important to people. We will stay laser-like with the Dakota House and The Ark. We will give them even more if it seems appropriate. We do this because we have relationship with these people and we know the work they are doing; we have even had opportunity to do hands-on work with these people, which is another great way to contribute. Additionally, we support the work of World Vision in different seasons (including Christmas), because they are experts at helping in the world's worst situations. And as other needs present themselves, we look at these too, particularly when they are needs within and close to our fellowship.

I think it is important to know what is going on in the world. Each time another troubling story catches my attention, it raises my awareness in a significant way. But I also believe it is important to know what God has called us to and to be faithful to that calling. And if that calling includes steady, purposeful generosity (in dollar and in deed) to certain ministries or missionaries, then I need to stick with it—and maybe all the more closely in difficult times, because in such times the demand on these ministries is multiplied—so that the relationship between me and them (or us and them) is deepened.