What Do You Care About?

If you missed our latest blog, please click here to see the exciting news about our coding program in Haiti! There has been so many crazy things in our world lately, and All Things New has been blessed greatly with this idea just getting off of the ground.

Today I wanted to discuss the topic "things that we care about." I started thinking about this on my last trip to Haiti when some of the older boys started asking for work so that they could make some spending money. The thing that I noticed is that some of them really worked and persevered and found a job while others just liked the idea of a job or they just like to complain about not having one. One of our boys worked himself into a job while the others just talked a lot and never really did anything. I told them that their actions showed me that they did not really care about finding work even though their words told me that they wanted it.

My question is, "What Do You Care About?"

It seems like there has been a shift lately where the majority of people fully believe they care about something when they talk about it a lot. When they share things on social media or tell other people how important it is to them. What struck me with our boys is that only one of them (Son Son) really cared about getting a job, and he worked hard until he got one.

When we truly care about things, we work for them. When we truly care about something or someone, we do not let anything stop us or hold us back from our goal. When we give lip service to something, we are content to talk and talk, trying to convince others and ourselves that we truly care about those things when the reality is that we do not.

One of the most difficult decisions Jess and I have ever made in our married life was whether or not to move down to Haiti back in 2013. One thing I remember is thinking that if we moved down to start taking care of them, we could never stop. No matter how difficult things got or how much we wanted to go back to "normal life" we could not. You cannot tell a child that you love them and are there to take care of them and then stop, there are few things that I can think of that would be worse than that.

Here's the thing: It was worth it!

We have worked, along with many of you, every day since then starting a non profit, raising money, learning how to care for children, hiring the right employees, and changing our lives so that we could take care of our kids. 

I am not bragging, trust me. I am not sure how to adequately explain this statement, but there is 100% absolutely nothing to brag about. Jessica and I cared deeply about something and we changed our lives for it.

What I have noticed, and even more so since the advent of social media, is that people are much more apt to talk than to work. Think about some of these things:

 - As Christians we are supposed to love other people. We also believe that without a relationship with Christ, a person dies in their sin and is separated from Jesus for eternity. The very idea of that should break us...When is the last time we shared our faith?

 - The World Health Organization states that over 300 children around the world die of malnutrition. In Haiti alone, millions of people live on less than $2/day. There are people in our very own communities who cannot afford food every day...When is the last time we gave up anything (even a Starbucks run) and truly sacrificed for GOD's children around the world?

 - GOD listens when His people pray. The world seems to be going crazy and getting worse daily. People are scared and dying and in need of Jesus...When is the last time we spent real and considerable time on your knees for those who are hurting as individuals or as churches?

 - There have been over 80 million abortions in America alone since it was legalized. That means that 80 million children were killed in the womb before ever getting a chance at life. How horrible. I wonder what our churches would look like right now if there were 80 million more people in America...When is the last time we, rather than complaining about abortion, considered giving up anything to open our home and our families to children through foster care or adoption so that there is a good choice?

My point is that there are so many things in this world that we should care about, that Jesus cares about. The problem is that when our "caring" is nothing more than a lot of talking backed up by a lot of nothing, we show what many people outside of the church believe about Christians to be true...that we are hypocrites. 

When we study our lives and where we spend our time, efforts, and money then we will see what we truly care about and I am afraid that many of us may not like what we find. Can we make a deal? Can we please stop talking about and acting like we care about things when nothing about our actions or our lives show that we do?

Can we make another deal? Can we please study the Word of GOD and figure out the things that GOD cares about and start truly caring about those things? Because GOD does care about the souls of the lost, He cares that people are starving, He cares what you do with your time and money, He deeply desires that we spend time on our knees every day, and He definitely cares about the lives of unborn children.

Let's CARE about those things too!