Apathy

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“He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor
will also cry himself and not be heard.”
- Proverbs 21:13

I spent yesterday afternoon at Georgetown as our students on that campus wrapped up their 24 hour SeeSaw marathon. It was so good to be with them and to hear the stories of how God had used that time. They told me about public safety officers who had come to get more information, students who were made aware of the slave trade for the first time and stories of how God used the whole experience to stretch and grow our team at Georgetown.

But what’s most stunning to me is not the students who jumped on board with what we were there to represent. What’s most stunning is the ones who walk right by not willing to do anything to help these desperate little girls. It’s the apathy and indifference that gets me. I’m not angry. But it breaks my heart. And it reminds me why The Gathering exists.

What’s really stunning is that a little bit of that apathy lives in me still. And it’s in you too. We all need to take the simple truth of Proverbs 21:13 to heart. It’s so easy to close our ears to the cry of the poor. Their voices are tiny and powerless. We can walk right by them, turn our iPod up and pretend they aren’t even in our city. But they. And they are so close to the heart of God.

Fight apathy. In the world. On your campus. In your heart. Open your ears, your eyes and your heart. We live in a world desperate for the hope we carry. A hope named Jesus. A hope that draws the weakest to the throne of majesty.

October 21st, 2008 · Share This:


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Comment by Anonymous on October 22nd, 2008

With the economic crisis, we tend to think “oh, what’s going to happen to my college tuition loans” or “gee, I’m gonna have to buy less clothes” and we start feeling like it’s the end of the world…
Maybe we should think of the people that were already hungry, what’s going to happen to them?
Yes, Jesus’s calling.

Comment by Anonymous on October 23rd, 2008

Um, some of us do not want to throw money at a Christian organization which will go overseas and try to convert starving children to their faith. You guys apparently call this “missionary work.” Which is interesting to me, considering there have been reports out of Africa about starving villages being denied food until they help build a place of worship and accept the word of God.

If Christians were actually going to donate money and time to these causes without trying to subject free people to their own views, then maybe more people would donate explicitly to their causes.

As for the homeless people and children… well, we would have been able to do more to help them had we elected politicians who actually cared about helping the poor people in this country instead of bloating the pockets of the already exorbitantly wealthy… but because Bush and Cheney oppose abortion and claim that God speaks to them, Christians jumped on board and voted them back into office. And wow, look where we are: On the brink of an economic crisis while our men and women are being butchered overseas, as we also bomb innocent Iraqi civilians into oblivion.

Sounds real Christian of us.

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