Conviction.
We walked a couple blocks to have dinner tonight at an outdoor cafe; a soup known as the national dish. I ate most of it, but left the meat chunks as I often do when I'm in a foreign country. As we got up to leave a young boy came up to beg from us. I've gotten fairly used to it and ignore them as I've been told to do, but this time my friend decided to get a bag and give the boy our leftover fries. Much to my horror, he went over to the table, took my spoon and ate the pieces of meat I'd left.
My friend tells me that he's a professional beggar, that his clothes are too clean and he's got shoes and he probably gets sent out on the job by his parents. She's says it's a culture where people eat from a communal pot so eating out of my bowl was no big deal for him. While I appreciated her attempts to make me feel better, the whole episode left a bad taste in my mouth.
You see, I was reminded tonight how fickle my convictions can sometimes be. I'm easily outraged by injustice, but the passion soon cools and I move on. Last summer in Guatemala I was deeply impacted by poverty the likes of which I'd never seen. I was told 50,000 infants died every year from basic diarrhea -- something that can be cured with a $3 pill. $3.
My second brother died as an infant and it was one of the most impactful, defining moments of my life. When I heard about 50,000 families going through a loss like that which could be solved by what I spent on a cup of coffee...I'll be honest, I found a back room in the church and I wept. I came home to Boise and couldn't spend $3 at Starbucks for a long, long time. I haven't even used more than a cup or two from the $50 in Starbucks gift cards I got for Christmas. But more than a general nausea when it comes to Starbucks, what have I done with that conviction, that outrage? Not much. And somehow I've found a way to live with it.
A couple months ago I heard that 60% of the men of Sudan have been killed in the last few years. 60%. Can you even imagine that? I've been meaning to write a blog about it but I couldn't think of what to say that wouldn't be completely hollow.
The problem as I see it is that we're surrounded by horror. Perhaps not always in our own lives, but watching 10 minutes of any given newscast on any given day will remind us. It's too much. How can we absorb so much pain and destruction and not become calloused? Especially when almost all of us can name a family member or close friend who's suffering right at this moment from cancer, or divorce, or the death of a loved one. Who can handle the rest of the world's problems when we're absorbed with our own and those of the ones we love?
Maybe I am transitory in my convictions. Maybe it's a coping mechanism to let certain things go and only focus on a few issues I feel there's a possibility I might accomplish something in. Who knows? What came to my mind and gave me comfort tonight while thinking of my ever-morphing outrage was this verse:
...being confident of this, that He Who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6
If I don't understand God's ways in allowing different things to happen or I don't know how to deal with it all perfectly, I guess that just means His good work isn't complete in me yet.
