I have officially been in 7 different countries around the World: The USA, Greece, Mexico, South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, and India. I have struggles, problems, hurts, and suffering in all of them. I am almost surprised to find out that though these things may look different from country to country, they are all the same.
There is poverty in all of these countries (yes, the USA is the richest nation in the world, but if there are people who can’t afford shelter, food, water, or clothing don’t tell me they are wealthy. But that’s a blog for another time). There are people who are attacked, hungry, sick, lonely, lost, and so much more in every country I have visited. These things exist outside of geographic, religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. And there isn’t one blanket solution for them.
As a missionary, I often want to do something to help or to fix all of these things, but that doesn’t always mean I need to get involved. My heart hurts for the drunk man on the side of the road; so I give him water. My heart hurts for the street kids; so I give them crackers. My heart hurts for the orphans; so I spend time with them. But none of this is lasting- and even some of my lasting solutions are harmful.
If I provide too much food, the grocers go out of business. Then there are more impoverished people. If I provide too many clothes, the seamstresses and weaver go out of business. Then their are more people out of work.
What do I do? How do I help and not hurt? How do I show Jesus? What am I actually here to do?
That is a hard question to answer. Yet, I can tell you that I am not actually called to do anything about these problems. God didn’t call me out into the world to end starvation, to sanitize everyone’s water, to clothe every person, to build shelters, or do any of those things. He called me to simply go and make disciples. He called you to go and make disciples, too.
That doesn’t mean we should ignore what we see. It doesn’t mean we should never act. It just means our main purpose isn’t to fix someone else’s “problem”.
If you want to make a lasting impact, make a disciple who makes more disciples.
The Church is corporately called to care for the widows and the orphans and those who can’t care for themselves. But individually, we are called to make disciples and those disciples are called to make more disciples. Then church grows, and people’s needs are met. But more importantly souls are saved.
We need to help the least of these, but our purpose in life is not to provide for people’s most basic human needs. Our purpose in life is to make disciples in our Judea, our Samaria, and even to the farthest ends of the earth.
