Perspective

Two or three things that I came across in the past day or so caught my eye.  I'm not sure where they are leading me, but here goes.

First, one of my former students and heroes has begun a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Cape Verde, Africa.  She has dreamed and planned this for quite sometime.  She has made a commitment that few of us would make - to travel to a distant place and give of her talents in a way that will impact the lives of others in a positive way.  Her blog has told of her first few weeks in Cape Verde and the very different life there.  Roosters on or under the table, bucket baths, hand washing clothes, learning an entirely new language, and many other things.  People in developing countries make do and survive on so much less than we do.  A few of us would be inconvenienced by the demands of life there, but most of us would find surviving difficult, if not impossible.  I have no doubts that this hero of mine will not only survive, but she will thrive as she begins teaching and loving the people of Cape Verde.

Just after reading the blog from Cape Verde, I came across a map titled "Billionaires of the World."  Here is the map.

As a geographer, the spatial distribution intrigues me.  As a person living in a developing country, it makes me realize that the developed world has more than its share of the world's wealth.  I'm no billionaire, but to the developing world I may as well be.  The World Bank estimates that 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.  You don't have to travel far to see poverty; to see people struggling.  As a Christian, this inequity is something I know we cannot ignore.

Finally, there was a devotion I was reading from Psalm 50.  In it God tells His people that all the world is His.  What is offered to Him as a sacrifice already belongs to Him.  Verses 7-12:

 ⁷ "Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
       O Israel, and I will testify against you:
       I am God, your God.

 ⁸ I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
       or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
 ⁹ I have no need of a bull from your stall
       or of goats from your pens,
 ¹⁰ for every animal of the forest is mine,
       and the cattle on a thousand hills.
 ¹¹ I know every bird in the mountains,
       and the creatures of the field are mine.
 ¹² If I were hungry I would not tell you,
       for the world is mine, and all that is in it.


We offer God what is already His.  Seems a bit arrogant doesn't it?  Verses 14 - 15 we read:


14 Set out a sacrifice I can accept: your thankfulness.
     Be true to your word to the Most High.
15 When you are in trouble, call for me.
     I will come and rescue you, and you will honor Me.


The Message closes Psalm 50 this way:


23 It is the praising life that honors me.
    As soon as you set your foot on the Way,
    I'll show you my salvation.


We who have so much in this world cannot keep it beyond this life.  Our neighbors - our brothers and sisters - are in need.  Each of us can find a way to help, to share, to ease someone's pain. Not all of us can join the Peace Corp, but we an all find a way to help others.  It starts with giving thanks to God for all that He has provided. Through that thankfulness, that "praising life" we can find ways to "act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."