Joseph Stalin said that.
No, I don't usually start my posts with quote from socialists. I don't usually end them with those quotes, either. Or put them in the middle. Or anywhere. Okay, in general, I don't quote socialists, communists, or other people of like repute.
But to be honest, this quote gets me every time...because it amazes me how easy it is to think that way.
Here's some statistics to get the ball rolling.*
- There are 143 million orphans in the world.
- There are 3 billion people living in poverty.
- There are 27 million victims of human trafficking each year.
- 45% of the population of Kenya is Christian. With a population of 41,070,934, that means that more than 2 million people do not know Christ -- in Kenya alone.
- Only 50% of Americans even claim to be Christian. That means 156,616,022 people do not even profess to spend Sunday in church.
And I find it far too easy to look at that and say, "It's not that bad."
Oh, that terrifies me.
If there were a little girl living in Zambia, starving, afraid, alone, abandoned, with no one to love her...and she was the only one in the world...you can bet that I'd be coming to my parents, pleading to go to Africa, begging to be provided a way to get to that child. But because there's 143 million of those children...suddenly it's not as urgent?
I would give all I have for the one, but the millions hardly disturb me?
There is something so, so wrong with that.
To get an idea of the magnitude of the situation, I thought I'd give you a little help in the form of some crazy stuff I learned from Louie Giglio:**
- A million seconds ago was twelve days ago. (143 million orphans, 27 million modern-day slaves)
- A billion seconds ago was in 1975. (3 billion people in poverty)
Okay, that just blows my mind. It does. So I did a little math of my own. If you were to count every single orphan, one per second, every second, it would take you almost five years. If you were to count every single person in poverty, one per second, every second, it would take you until 2123 -- one hundred and eleven years of counting every single second.
Guys, we don't live long enough to count them all.
When I realize the magnitude of the situation, it suddenly becomes so easy to write it off as a statistic. Perhaps a heartbreaking statistic, but when there's a sea of billions in front of you, what do you do with that? I don't look at a football stadium filled with people and say, "Gee, I love that football stadium." I don't know anything about the people there (except that they all likely enjoy football). I can't see their faces, I don't know their stories. I don't know how to love the many.
Jesus loved the many, by loving the one.
He had this uncanny ability to see the entire world, and focus in on one face, one story, one life. And that single story moved Him to give His life.
He loved the many by loving the one.
Jesus understood that the millions are composed of individuals. He didn't love numbers, He loved people. Yes, God so loved "the world," but the world...it's made up of people.
And so are those statistics.
And then it begins to hit me. 143,000,000. 27,000,000. 3,000,000,000.
What can I do against that?
From a human perspective, I can't even make a dent.
But to Jesus, one person is a huge dent. He smiles and says, "That one is so important to Me. That one is incredibly precious to Me. It makes all the difference in the world. That one is Mine."
To Jesus, even one is reason to rejoice. It's reason to sing. And it's reason to die.
I want to spend my life for the one. I may not know their names. But I'm determined I will...one by one.
*Statistics from Adventures in Missions and the CIA World Factbook
**"How Great is Our God," Louie Giglio
