Do What You Can

Sometimes changing the world requires us to get outside our comfort zone.  I find the older I get the harder this is for me to do.  Or perhaps the more stressed I am the harder it is to get outside my comfort zone.  The point is that it just may take getting outside of our comfort zone to have world changing interactions.

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Perhaps to change the world we have to do something about suffering.  The hardest place to do this might be right where we live.  Years ago I had a burning desire to go on a mission trip to India, but was unable to go.  I really wanted to make a difference and felt very called to the mission and it was very difficult to accept that I could not go.  Over the years I have supported others on mission trips, hosted fundraisers, bought countless candy bars and even stood by the bus as loved ones headed off to their own mission trips.  I wonder though if it is easier to get on the bus to exotic locations rather than step off the curb and make a difference in our own neighborhoods, where we live, work and play.

Another phenomenon is how aversive we find suffering to be in our own general area.  When we see the abused puppy on the commercial or the starving children across the ocean we are heart struck.  However, when we see the rail thin stray dog wandering the streets do we feed it?  When we see poverty in our city do we go to those neighborhoods and do service or do we avoid those neighborhoods because we consider them to be dangerous.  We go make meals at the shelter, but do we make sure our local food shelves are stocked.  The list goes on, but I sincerely wonder if we are willing to see suffering in the faces we see as we go about our day to day lives.

So today's challenge is to open our eyes and see the suffering that already exists in our sphere of influence.  See it, and then do something.  Do what you can to ease someone else's suffering, however small you might think it is, do something in hopes that it makes someone's day just a little bit brighter.