Open my eyes to the need of the world Labels: Poverty
What is poverty? Why does God allow it? Why is there such disparity between the rich and the poor? Timeless questions no one has an answer to. Even if they do, it has been heavily rationalized with the dilution of human wisdom. Today He planted these questions in my mind, as my eyes flitted from the Indonesian maids sitting idly in an employment agency, and came to realize how I was in such a privileged position. I didn't need to go elsewhere to earn a living. Be uprooted from what I know, go to a foreign land and be treated as second-class. My human mind tries to grasp a single word to describe how I feel about this, and found that the only word that came to mind was unfair. This is so unfair. I get 3 square meals a day, and some people go to sleep without a morsel of food in their stomachs.
We were discussing a scenario in class today in which someone was allegedly being 'oppressed' during police questioning by being deprived of food and drink for 5-6 hours. My tutor made a comment, "5-6 hours! That's already a luxury for the people in Burkina Faso. People go hungry for days!" Some of us managed a chuckle, but deep down it disturbed me.
Just the other day, my mum and I were watching a programme on Egypt on Discovery Travel. There came this point in the programme when I saw the pyramids and casually said to her, "Wah! People so eng [free] ah, spent years building this." She quickly went on about how we were doing the same things with our own lives in Singapore, trying to earn more than we can possibly need, building our own pyramids which weren't necessary at all. Why weren't we giving more to the poor elsewhere, trying to plug the gap? Then again, there was Abraham Maslow's theory about the hierarchy of needs, she explained.
And so tonight I tried to google "poverty", google "hunger", and the results that I got were less than satisfactory. True, the problem is dire, everyone recognizes on paper and in the media. But how could I ever understand what real poverty and hunger was without actually experiencing it? I would never.
Is anyone doing anything about poverty?
Who cares?
There is no one altruistic State that can help. Is there? How about NGOs? Oxfam International? Unicef? Save the children? Do we do more harm than good?
Questions that I cannot answer. Although tonight I've decided a few things, a few things, that by the grace of God, are in tune with Biblical principles.
1. God instructs Christians to be compassionate.
No, I will not accept that spiritual poverty is the only need we are to address. This will make us awfully unfeeling and self-righteous.
"Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."- Matthew 25: 34-40.
And, faith without works is dead. "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled', without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."- James 2:14-17
These pertain to Christians- see the words "brother" and "sister", though I venture to say that it may be taken to purposively include the world population at large. But how about James 1:27? "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."
I'm ashamed today to quote the words of my friend, that at times, the UN is doing more than the church regarding poverty. (But is this the church's role? To alleviate poverty? Discussed at another time). All in all, we must have compassion for those who are suffering, physically impoverished, and those, namely, who have much less than ourselves. God wants us to be compassionate, loving others like He would.
2. A little goes a long way
Empty musing and hollow rhetoric cannot do anything to help the situation. Cynicism cripples the developed world from helping the developing. We must recognize, that in spite of the structural problems of corruption from food aid and systemic problems like the poverty cycle, there are little ways in which we can help to narrow the gap between the wealthy and the poor.
Contributing a little to charity. Raising awareness over causes our hearts beat for, these count. A little goes a long way, we cannot dismiss all channels of help as readily as most people do.
3. Not forgetting the problem of spiritual poverty
The world is in need of a Saviour. But physical poverty exacerbates this, distorts this. All humans need God. So despite prosperous Singapore, I see spiritual poverty. I see a people running on empty, leading purposeless lives, accumulating wealth, loving pleasure rather than loving God.
"...remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world."- Ephesians 2:12.
That separation from Christ leaves a longing and desire that nothing else can fill. So this is the underlying root of all problems, the need for God everywhere in the world. This surpasses all physical needs as expressed in Jesus' encounter with the woman of Samaria.
"Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'"- John 4:13-14
So people always mistake a spiritual problem for a physical problem. Physical needs are pressing, ever-present needs, but spiritual needs are unseen and the base of all other needs. Without a purpose, why would you want to continue to feed yourself to maintain an existence? Perhaps it is a human survival instinct, but I still feel strongly that the spiritual realm is more important than the natural realm when addressing these issues.
For, at the end of our time, will we be bringing more souls to God through Christ just by alleviating poverty?
Let God's word be the last word on this.
And I choose to quote on love, for my God is all about love. Love that translates into action.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloeved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."- 1 John 4:7-12