Selling Out
In lieu of my last rant let me tell you about a couple people I met just this last week that inspired me. The first is a college guy by the name of Chris who loves music and is a serious guitar player. Chris started feeling convicted about doing something to address poverty and so he went out and sold three of his four guitars, as well as some other stuff. He told me it wasn’t easy to let go of some of his highly prized instruments but he felt like it was important to serve the needs of the poor and that he could slim down his lifestyle. He was so excited in fact, that he got a bunch of his friends together and they are doing the same thing as well as getting their church on board – their goal is to help build several wells through Blood:Water Mission.
Chris inspires me because he’s serious about what he believes and he’s willing to make personal sacrifices to help others. Given an honest self-assessment, I’m not sure I’m even as serious as Chris – at face value I’ve dedicated my life to helping others, but on a daily basis it’s easy to make it just a job rather than a true lifestyle.
The other group is a homeless program down in the tri-state area. The gentleman who runs the program heard about BWM and became extremely excited about the prospect of helping people in Africa. Rather than going to his family or church for donations, he engaged the most unlikely crowd to help people in Africa, the homeless men in his program. The message that there were people in greater need than themselves was a challenging revelation, but not as challenging as the idea that they could do something about it.
In small steps and loose change over the course of 6 months they managed to put together $2,000 which they sent in to BWM. How amazing is that! Who can put a price on that kind of sacrifice? At the end of the day their response was “we never imagined we could do something for someone else!”
I’m totally excited for those guys and the change their efforts will make in Africa and I’m amazed at the sacrifices they made to achieve that. But the person that amazes me most is the man that was able to inspire those homeless men to act beyond themselves even when they felt utterly powerless to do so. What an incredible effect to have on people. His impact is not in just sending money to help people five thousand miles away, but he’s personally invested in caring for people around him.
Honestly, it’s pretty easy to remain emotionally detached and send money; but do I really care about the people around me? How would my world look if I stepped out and imparted a vision of change and self-worth to people around me and inspired them to act beyond themselves? What kind of butterfly effect could that have on the face of poverty?
Lets face it, sometimes, maybe often, we do need to sell a few of our personal ‘guitars’ because we are a consumer society that exists on way more than we need. However, at the end of the day it’s not how much we give or how elaborate our efforts are; it’s not even how much impact we bring to people a thousand miles away. The value of your actions can be measured by what the sacrifice means to you, and the relational impact it has on others. Buying a cup of coffee for a guy on the street, giving $10 bucks or even $1 dollar at a charity event, or spending half an hour chatting with an elderly neighbor who needs some company – these all have extreme value. These simple actions woven into an ongoing lifestyle of compassion can have a profound effect on the world.
