Fighting Apathy

Here is sampling of some statements and statistics David Platt gave on November 4, 2011 for the webcast event Secret Church:

 “46 million abortions occur every year in the world; 130,000 daily. ”

“According to Barna and Focus on the Family Research as many as 50% of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce; the church is imitating the world.”

“According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), over the past 30 years, more than 30 million children have been sexually exploited though human trafficking.”

When you just read those statistics what did they mean to you?

Did you just skim through them or did you stop and let them penetrate your heart?

I’m asking this because when I listened to those same statistics last Friday I responded with a less than favorable attitude--with apathy. I felt like I had heard many statistics similar to these all the time and that it was nothing unfamiliar. And I’m not saying I don’t have compassion for people and their hurt, but with complete honesty it has been a little bit easier for me to overlook it lately. It’s almost as if I have become numb to the urgent sin and hurt of this world.

Since coming to college, it has been hard to avoid apathy. I have put myself in the typical “OBU bubble.” I haven’t taken the time to pray for the distress in the world today. But, in my defense, I feel like it’s difficult for any college student to avoid this dilemma. We live every day in an environment of college kids who have it exceptionally well.

Apathy doesn’t manifest solely with major issues in the world. It can also translate to relationships with the people closest to us.  It is easy to overlook a parent, spouse, friend, or co-worker because of a busy agenda. And in most cases, it’s not that people are unwilling to show others love; it’s just easy to forget to show it.

When are people going to slow down and take a moment to care or help another person--especially one they love? When is the world (more specifically the church) going to slow down and show compassion toward the statistics?

           

Perhaps  you heard or felt the series of earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past week. And if you kept up with social networking during these occurrences, you probably noted a trend. Without fail, after an earthquake twitter and Facebook would have a multitude of new status updates.

Everyone would make their statuses about the earthquake, their feelings toward the earthquake, or about how many statuses there were about the earthquake. This made me think. Why do we not do the same for the major issues of the world such as the hurt of human trafficking or high divorce rates? Aren’t these just as, if not more, urgent?

Instead of raising awareness about something we can prevent we choose to focus on something we can’t prevent.

           

Like many, I struggle with apathy and being unaware of the world’s controversies. It’s not that I am not willing to help. I just haven’t taken time to stop and seek out the issues that need compassion.  I also haven’t stopped to remind myself that behind the statistics are real, hurting people.

“ …And if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” 1 Corinthians 13:2-3

I may be willing to give up everything and become a missionary overseas, but without passion for every single God-made person it’s worthless. And one way to show this deep love is by being able to mourn the lostness of this world. And I wish I could tell you that I have found the secret to actually doing this but I haven’t.

So, I made a decision to consciously avoid apathy. I also decided to pray that the Lord would take all apathy out of my heart and replace it with a strong Christ-like compassion.

Thanks for reading!

Karlie