The Things that Really Matter
Writing about football is definitely a first for me and I’m sure you’re thinking right about now, “Why do I want to read about football on a woman’s website?” – but stay with me! Being a Wisconsinite I am often reminded about just how crazy Green Bay Packer fans can be or any pro-football team for that matter. It's astounding to me how the entire social media universe can be ablaze with outrage over a call referees make that "cost" a team the game. To say people get angry is an understatement. They get worked up on every level. Twitters and Facebook pages are devoted to passing out phone numbers so you can call in protest, interview after interview showcases shocked fans, and anger permeates the airwaves.
What troubles me most as I look at how much news time, both locally and nationally, is devoted to this and the urgency people feel to do something about this injustice (team "x" should have won)... is how little most of us are moved to this same degree about the things that really do matter in this life – the genuine injustices in our world.
When was the last time Twitter was ablaze by outraged people about the thousands of people dying on a daily basis who will enter a lost eternity, or the millions of babies who are regularly discarded like garbage, or the millions of AIDS-orphaned children in Africa alone who will never feel the embrace or love of a Mommy or Daddy, or the thousands of young girls robbed of their innocence being sold into sex slavery right here under our noses and around the globe? Where are the Twitter messages, phone numbers, and outrage for these injustices? When is the last time local and national airtime was devoted to such life and death issues? Instead, we’re using all of our valuable energy and resources to get upset over a game. It’s not life and death, it doesn’t affect eternity, and it won’t make a difference in changing the world for Christ.
In thinking on all of this, I have felt the Holy Spirit’s conviction in my own heart. Have I just been sleeping my way through life and the things that break God’s heart - preoccupied with things that really don’t matter? My heart should be broken by the things that break God’s heart and moved to take action, much like crazed and upset fans do in the aftermath of the “injustice” of a lost football game. Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” Now these are things to get worked up about - the real injustices around us.
Yet we get so distracted, don’t we? It’s so easy to get worked up about the “temporal” things of this world at the grave expense of the eternal things that really matter. Jesus was all about living with eternity in focus. Everything He did with His time, His energy, His interactions with people was all about the things that lasted, not the things that eventually pass away. Especially today, we need to devote our lives to causes that make a difference, we need to take to the airwaves and social media fighting the real injustices that will change or save a life for eternity.
What things are you getting worked up about? It’s a question we all need to wrestle with. May God give us the courage and commitment to give our lives to the things that really matter!