Gently Forced [part 1]

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the floods that took place in Australia in December of 2010 through January 2011?

Then you probably also know about the 6.3 earthquake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand in February and which (so far) has caused 182 deaths?

Just a week ago today, on March 11th, 2011, Japan was slammed by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake that caused a devastating tsunami which also took many lives and damaged many cities and towns.

I realize this doesn’t seem like the most “positive” way to start a blog post (by regurgitating natural disaster & loss of life statistics) but something has been bugging me lately. Last week during our Missions Conference I began realizing what it was….

It was most noticeable to me when a friend, Marcondes, from Brazil, got up and spoke to our local church. He showed a simple video slideshow of the dilemmas, triumphs, and life that he sees daily in Brazil. As he finished speaking it happened. We began singing a song that our church has been loving lately. But suddenly, the song lost all of it’s flavor and I wanted to leave the stage. Quit singing. Stop playing. Do more than just sing a song. I felt uncomfortable.

It’s not that singing wasn’t fine….the lyrics and melody of the song sounded nice together….people were enjoying it….but I felt completely disconnected from the song I was supposed to be leading. In one simple talk I had been gently forced to see the amazing life I have, while also being confronted with the not-so-amazing-and-sometimes-wildly-unjust-and-cruel lives that a good portion of the world was waking up to in that same moment. It reminded me of all the times I had turned the channel away from commercials like this.  Or closed the browser on videos like this because I didn’t want to see what was really happening in the world.

On Monday I’ll post a few SIMPLE ways we can help these countries in need. But during this weekend, and this season of Lent, I thought it might be appropriate for us all to be gently forced into “seeing” what is happening in our world, to be thankful for the lives we have been given, and hopefully to want to take action.