Can we be more conscious?

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could be apathetic, I wish I could not care, I wish my heart won't feel the pain, I wish I didn't cry at thoughts like that. Every time I watch the news, I hear of reports in the world of children being enslaved, of kids suffering the consequences of their negligent parents, of children being taken into child armies and of the many homes and lives lost due to natural disasters. 

It pains my heart every time I hear of it and visually seeing it makes my heartache so bad. I wish I could do something for them, I wish I can take them out of their misery, but I know, with what I have now, I can't do much but pray. To pray for their lives to be saved, for them to know the Lord, for Him to forgive their sins. 

Perhaps it's just me.. But I hope my friends and loved ones will feel the same for the less fortunate, to know how fortunate we are to have what we have and to appreciate the abundance that we enjoy. I wish for people to know that when we complain about the little we have, someone out there, has nothing. When we complain about the stresses of our education, there is a child out there who wishes for one and takes simple pride in a coloring book. When we wake up each morning hating what we do, wishing we could do something else in life, there is someone out there who is waking up wondering when their next meal will come. 

Maybe it's inconsequential to us, to our lives and what we do, but I do hope we stand up for injustice when we see it. I hope we feel indignant for the skilled worker that gets paid pittance for hours of laborious work for something that is charged 2000 times more. When we buy the next chocolate bar, coffee beans, cinnamon powder or even peppercorns, give thanks for what we have because someone spent hours harvesting, rolling and roasting them before they got to us, buy FAIR-TRADE even if it costs more. 

I just pray for more consciousness amongst this younger generation, I pray for people's heart to change and to have a social conscience. I pray that even though these people may seem to have very big problems in life, that they may receive Christ, because sin is a problem bigger than all of that, the absence of God in their lives is of greater urgency. 

Just like in Mark 2: 1-12

       1 "A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.

      2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.

      3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them.
      4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.
     5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'
     6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
     7 'Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?'
     8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, 'Why are you thinking these things?
     9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'?
   10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . .' He said to the paralytic,
    11 I'Il tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.'
    12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!"


Indeed, What is greater than our physical problems and circumstances, is our sin that paralyses us, our sin that can only be forgiven by God alone, our lives that can only be redeemed by Jesus's death for us. I pray for God's mercy to be upon them, upon the unfortunate and for those who yet to know Christ, accept him and have their sins forgiven.