“Information era.”

“The world at your doorstep.”

Statements that ring true but they feel false. What if we are so overloaded with information that we fail to COMPREHEND… What if we have so much available to us with just the click of a few buttons that we don’t ENGAGE…

I find I often can’t bear to watch the news. There is SO MUCH news and most of it passes in rapid fire. What is BIG seems small, commonplace, expected… “Did I really not even bat an eyelash at that story? How did I fail to react upon hearing another person was murdered last night? Was the extent of my response “shaking my head”? Why did I turn away, press mute, change the channel rather than listening to the story?”

Story

It’s the right word and wrong word in one. You can use the word story to imply power. You can also use the word story to describe something less than reality.

A news story is real life for someone with all the joy, happiness, fear, anger, and pain that reality brings. The “information era (overload)” and having the world at our doorstep/computer screen allow us to know so much but perceive so little. Because when we watch or read these stories we are tempted to settle for being merely a consumer, an absorber… passive.

Life is not just a news story. This is life, meant to be lived not merely observed.

And we are the BODY, not a diagram in a text book but a form meant for action.

Stories are happening all around you. Opportunities abound for the body of Christ to act. Sympathy makes for a perfect greeting card AND compassion moves action.

[And just when I am putting on my shoes ready to head out and break past the wall of emotive adjectives replaced with action verbs… just then… I am frozen in place by the enormity of the stories in the world and my minuscule ability to DO anything.]

The whisper of the Spirit thaws… “You are a part of the body…”

I am a piece, a part… I cannot do it all but I can do exactly that for which I’m made.

So, I take a step, its shaky, seems possibly purposeless but I do it anyway: I send a few text messages, make some phone calls, purchase some gifts, bake a few cookies, take the time to visit, give a hug, fervently lift in prayer, share the story… and, like the ripples of a pebble thrown in a pond are widely spreading, the impact of the little acts take shape.

Love can be a verb; compassion leads to action, the body of Christ moves with a purpose.

Today… yes, today… break past “observe” and move into “serve”?

~Jillene