Show The World You Care

There are too many people in the world who think no one cares.

The holiday season is closer that one thinks! It is a time that there is more care given to the needs of the world. Now let me say, this is good. However, there is a demon that creeps into our world far too quickly and quietly than we realize.

Acedia is a word that was used to describe the condition that you do not care. Furthermore, you do not care that you do not care. In the fourth century monastic writings, this demon was identified first among those who had withdrawn from the world into the monastic life. Their withdrawal separated them from the world. But then their withdrawal separated them from caring about the world.

Some would say that this is a form of compassion fatigue. We are overwhelmed with the world's problems. We feel helpless so we withdraw farther and farther. Or we see so much suffering that it becomes so ordinary that it no longer stirs our hearts.

Jesus would tell those who followed him to care. Jesus cared. He cared for the woman caught in adultery. He cared for the woman with too many husbands. Jesus cared for those whom the world had passed by year after year. Jesus cared for those up a tree. Jesus told story after story that could be summed up in one word--care.

One of the problems that we have is that we think caring means solving the problem. It does not. Many times you are called to care and still life's problems exist. A homeless traveler became angry with me one day because I would not give him what he thought he should get. He pointed his finger in my face and shouted, "As a pastor, you are supposed to care!" He was wrong. I did care. However, I did not confuse caring with solving life's problems. I refused to accept his call for guilt.

Caring is listening. Caring is watching. Caring is being there. Caring is praying. Caring is, sometimes, the ability to do something. Caring is becoming the hands and the heart of Jesus for the world. Caring is what Jesus instructed his disciples to do!

There are entirely too many people who think the world does not care.

Show the world you care!