A few times a year, the best kind of mail shows up in my mailbox. There are six kids sprinkled around the globe who send us letters and pictures. Eberson, in Haiti, sends me photos of him standing next to a calf and two fifty pound bags of rice and beans. Nohemi, a beautiful, ruddy-faced little girl in the mountains of Peru, sits next to her daddy with a stack of clothes, a doll, and a new table and chairs. The tie that binds us is one of money, because we support them monthly and send gifts for them to buy the goods we see in pictures. There is an obligation in the photo op, a head nod to our generosity.
This has a way of making me feel undone.
I’m caught so unaware when I open the envelope–ah! There are children who must buy a goat with their birthday money so their family might have milk. I am thrilled we have done something good, something helpful. But there is a truth that sits like a rock in my stomach. I am sickened that my pride is bolstered by their humiliation–they had to take a photo to prove their dire situation.
When I write back, I promise them I love them like my own children, I am concerned for their welfare. I pray for their safety and success. I hope to one day meet them, to hug their parents and grandparents.
But I will confess: the last letters I sent them sat, unmailed on my desk for two months. I kept putting off sending them because I first needed to address them, and the labels were down deep in the first drawer mess of my file cabinet.
Two months they sat there. During that time, Haiti fell apart. The people began to starve. Families began fleeing Venezuela. No rain fell in Kenya. Chinese churches were shut down because the government thought them a threat.
In the same period of time, I ordered four packages from Amazon. I watched an entire season of the British baking show. I ate out a dozen times. I got a puppy. I debated rearranging the living room.
The envelopes, full of encouragement and pictures of my healthy family on Mother’s Day, did not move from their corner on the desk.
My sponsored children write me. They tell me to pray that they might not contract diseases from mosquitoes. Their caregivers ask if we could pray they might be able to provide for their families. They ask how they can possibly pray for us.
I sit on my couch and flip channels, avoiding political news, debating whether to eat a piece of chocolate with my hot tea.
The divide is immense.
Recently I began telling the story of Ezekiel to my own kids. It was mostly for sport–Ezekiel was this guy who acted out the craziest scenes in order to get the attention of his people. He built a diorama of Jerusalem, then shaved his head and burned his hair inside the miniature city. He laid on his left side for a year and a month and didn’t even move. He dug a hole in the wall and climbed through it. He became the joke of the town to get the attention of his people. My little boys love these stories.
When I was reading back through Ezekiel to get my facts straight, I was confronted with the harshness of it, the stuff most Sunday school teachers skip right past. Far too R-rated to read to little boys without some bleeping. Back in his time, Ezekiel was living with some of the Jews who had been deported from their home to Babylon to live as slaves down by the river. There was a slew of false prophets in that day, guys that were promising the people that God wouldn’t destroy them completely, that they’d eventually get to go back home, and that every story had a happy ending. After all, they were God’s people, right?
But God had had enough. And he picked Ezekiel to give the message out, using the most peculiar pantomime. The Lord prepped Ezekiel for this task. He warned him that he’d be talking to knuckleheads who wouldn’t listen to him, but he also told him, “I’ll make your head even harder, harder than flint” (Ez. 3:9)–Ezekiel couldn’t back down.
For several chapters, the most awful things are prophesied, because the nation of Israel has forsaken their holy God. It’s a picture of people burning in the streets and dying by the sword, famine, cannibalism, natural disasters.
Why?! This, the plea of the casual reader. Isn’t God love?
But Israel had gone too far, offering their own children as sacrifices to idols and prostituting themselves to every passing notion. In fact, God compared the nation to Sodom, saying,
your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. This was the sin of your sister, Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. (Ez.16:49)
This stopped me in my tracks.
Overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
It hit a nerve. Overfed and unconcerned. Overfed and unconcerned. It’s chanted in my mind over and over since I read it. Overfed and unconcerned–he is talking about me. This applies to the here and now, yet we set our heads like flint and won’t hear it.
Now, I think we have a problem with the media for sure. The media, who gets to decide what is newsworthy and what falls by the wayside. If we don’t know about the Chinese government and its renewed persecution of the Christian church, it could be because CNN doesn’t think it worth mentioning. If we’ve forgotten about the suffering in Haiti and Venezuela, Africa, the Middle East, and North Korea–it is possible Fox News is holding out. But I think cable news actually feeds us exactly what we want, and we suck it down like greedy babies. Overfed. We’d all rather chew up Trump and Pelosi like bubblegum than stretch out our arm to save the needy. We have these phones in our hands that offer steady amusement, and we won’t look up.
If we don’t know about these atrocities, it’s because we don’t care. We are unconcerned. We are stuffed with the little hors d’oeuvres of the world, our mouths attached to a constant stream of tasty gossip. I want my ears tickled; I don’t want to feel pain or guilt. I want to sleep at night. I want God to love me and not expect too much in return. From what I read in Ezekiel, this isn’t a new thing.
Yesterday, I went into my office and sat down. I have a bad habit of thinking I’ve finished a task when really all I’ve done is thought about it. There are still stamped, unsent Christmas cards from 2018 in the drawer because I never found the address for the recipient. When I started thinking about the problem, I realized it boiled down to my lack of self-control, my lack of caring. I assume I will be the only one affected by my laziness, and I can keep it a suave little secret. It is tricky, isn’t it? Our flesh, our unspiritual selves, have great influence when it comes to convincing us to do or not do what is set before us. It snakes its way into nasty habits and self-serving idolatry. Our lack of discipline evolves into downright neglect, and we can’t see it for what it is.
The apostle Paul understood this battle against the flesh. He said we need to train as if we were Olympic athletes, lest we become overfed and unconcerned.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Cor. 9:24-27)
I am learning my discipline is tied to worship. Discipline to love my husband well, to set an example for my kids. Discipline to avoid the junk food of the world, pretty stuff with no real value. I need to train these muscles to walk toward the poor and needy, my eyes to see what is eternal. Self-control is a Spirit fruit (Gal. 5:23), and I need it to grow in every area of my life.
There is one boy–a man, actually–we have sponsored for nine years. He will turn 21 in a month. His mother and father are farm laborers and they have 11 children. I have thought what a simple thing it is for me to send this child of theirs an email telling him I believe in him. That if he focuses on a goal, he can accomplish anything. Over the years, I have become more cautious in the things I write. The fact of the matter is this: he is a young man in Haiti with limited education and opportunity. This year I wrote:
I hope this isn’t our final correspondence. I am concerned for you. I think that life must be very hard right now. I am praying for you. We will help in any way we can.
It takes discipline; it is sobering. It is bare bones, no fluff, written with all the love I can honestly offer.
He smiles at me from the picture on my refrigerator.
***I am convinced that supporting children in impoverished areas of the world is one of the most beautiful, tangible acts of love. If you are able and interested, check out Compassion International or World Vision.
