The Hole In Our Gospel, One Person, Eternity

Recently our church completed a six week series of messages and small group study based on the book The Hole in Our Gospel by the president of World Vision Richard Stearns. In this book Mr. Stearns lays out a compelling and challenging argument that we as the universal church of Christ have failed to meet the needs of our fellow humans all around the world. The Aids Epidemic in Africa, starvation and famine all over the globe, the lack of safe drinking water for an estimated billion people, the growing sex and slave trafficking going on even right here in the U.S., and many other major tragedies are cited as causes the modern day American church needs to champion in force yet have in a number of ways not done so. Needless to say, this study pushed a large number of people in our church hard out of their comfort zones me included.

I found myself struggling to get my mind wrapped around the shear magnitude of the many problems plaguing our earth: over 25,000 children dying each day from diseases that could have been eliminated with access to clean water and sanitation, over 15 million orphans due to the ravages of AIDS, and an estimated 2.5 million slaves trafficked worldwide just to name a few.

The horrors of what this broken world has to offer just seemed to be overwhelming and Richard Stearns ability to make you question your significance and make you feel guilty about it made the first 13 chapters difficult.

I found myself feeling angry that Mr. Stearns was pouring it on with such fervor yet I couldn't stop reading. As a leader of a small group within our church I also had to prepare for the study with the additional material provided along with a DVD produced by World Vision and my feelings of failure and overwhelming guilt as a Christ follower in America made me very frustrated at times. Somewhere after I think chapter 6 or 7 I wrote in my journal: "This is by far the hardest book I have ever read and yet the hardest to put down."

Page after page I felt as though instead of having what Mr. Stearns said he hoped would happen, "... (My) heart broken by what breaks the heart of God..." I became more and angrier with what he referred to as an accident of lattitude referring to a comment made by the lead singer of the super rock group U2, Bono, an incredible humanitarian in his own right.
I did my best to stay focused on the study and the weekly messages by our pastors and continue to pray that God would replace the angst I had in my head and my heart with an understanding and peace about it all.

It was not until we got to chapter 14 and were discussing the study in our small group did I finally have a breakthrough. In that chapter Stearns begins describing the many successes and improvements that have been made in the last decade around the world. It was during our small group conversation that it hit me that what Stearns was trying to do was to spur his reader, me in this case to action. Instead of being neutral and disengaged Mr. Stearns was trying to dislodge us from that comfortable position into one of conviction to do something no matter how small it may seem at first. His sustained and voluminous description of how large the problems were in the world was meant as a trumpet sound to rally us to the causes and make a difference as a collection of Christ followers and as individuals in His kingdom. I wrote in my journal that maybe just maybe the placing of someone in need in our path is as much about what we should be doing FOR the kingdom of God as it is about what they need FROM the kingdom of God.

It came flooding down on me like a cataract that rather seeing the needs of this world as so overwhelming that I am paralyzed to inaction that the God given talents that He has blessed all of us with along with the bounty He continues to bless us with in this country such be put to use with a goal just to impact one person in need at a time, not hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, at a time. If each of us would simply allow God to use us however He will to change the life of one person and then another, then another, what could be accomplished?

What impact would it have not only in this world now but for eternity? If just one person was helped in such a way as to see Jesus in all it and accepted Him as their Lord and Savior the impact would be unfathomable.
Eternity. Have you ever sat and tried to picture what that looks like? How long it is? How big it is?

For me it’s mind boggling. I struggle in my simple human mind to even remotely get close to an idea of its enormity so one day I tried to get a grasp of it. I thought about how we often exchange time for distance. For example, I live exactly 100 miles from the city of Asheville based on the mile markers on the interstate that runs from where I live to there. If you asked me the question how far it is to Asheville I am just as likely to say "Oh, about an hour and a half" obviously referring to the time it takes to drive there in a car as I am to say 100 miles.

In looking at how long eternity is then I applied this same approach. I went to the NASA website and learned that light travels at 5879 billion miles in one year. The concept of a billion of anything baffles me a bit I must confess but learned from another website that 1 billion pennies stacked on top of each other would be 10 miles high! 5879 billion miles in one year is almost beyond imagination but one year I can almost grasp.

Now again according to the NASA website the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting earth in the last two years photographed a galaxy a 100 million years old and so far away from ours that it took the light emitted from its stars 13 billion years to get to us! That light was traveling at 5879 billion miles per year for 13 billion years to get to us! How far is that? How much time is that? Are you kidding me? My goodness it’s beyond my comprehension.

Yet, eternity is longer than that. God has been around longer than that. He is bigger than all of that space combined.
And we as His saved are promised eternal life with Him through the blood of Jesus that is longer than 13 billion years.
If we through our serving God to help just one person on this planet that is thirsty, is homeless, is starving, is orphaned, enslaved, lacks clothing, our is ravaged by disease and through our serving that one person accepts Christ then the impact we have had on that person is eternal: Longer than 13 billion years of light traveling at 5879 billion miles a year. It is beyond our comprehension but absolutely achievable.

Instead of getting completely defeated and discouraged by the enormity of the needs of this world we should be emboldened by the magnitude of the impact we can have for eternity one person at a time. Instead of doing nothing because we don’t know where to start we just need to start and God will reveal the need.

The book The Hole in Our Gospel has after it all is said and done has motivated me in such a way. For me it has inspired me to continue to press forward with the CareerLIFE Ministry even though there have been some set backs and discouragements. By continuing the effort the hopes will be that the organization can be self-funded, create opportunities to help more people, and eventually fund other outreaches. I have set a goal that in 2011 to support at least one well being drilled by Charity: Water someplace in the world. Regardless, the whole focus is helping one person at a time in need. Help just one at a time. God will bless that effort and eternity could be impacted.

So what is calling you to action? Where can you put the bounty that God has blessed you with to use in making this world a better place one person at a time both for now and Eternity?

Nothing is too big for God to achieve when we allow Him to use us in His plan.
Where are you being called? Don't let the enormity of the problem keep you from answering. Step out of neutral and start moving forward. It will have eternal ramifications.

On this Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.,  let us all be thankful for the gifts we have all been blessed to receive and think about how each of us can put them to use to make a difference....one person at at time.