I love Jason Russell and the work of Invisible Children.  I love the work of Scott Harrison and Charity:Water.  I love the work of Gary Haugen and IJM; Jena Nardella and Blood:Water; Peter Greer and HOPE International; and (increasingly) many, many others.  I especially like that my younger friends care about these issues and I support their work in whatever way I can.  I read about the ravages of malaria, poverty, and sex-trafficking. I read daily of the atrocities inflicted on defenseless women and children.  I have seen them first-hand.  I have taught Bonhoeffer and the words he speaks and the willing sacrifice of his life more than challenge me and get under my skin. They disturb me.  “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless.  Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Every day and many times each day I am introduced to a new cause or a new condition in the world that clamors for my attention and my compassion.  It is not just for money or asking me to buy a shirt or coffee or some other trinket that will help someone else change the world.  It is not just asking me to vote for the most popular cause to help Pepsi or Chevrolet decide where their corporate donations should be spent.  I remember a carnival game from years ago.  The gopher would pop up out of a hole and you had to whack it with a hammer before it disappeared and popped up somewhere else.  The speed increased and in time you realized you were not after one gopher but several.  The game was designed to defeat you.  I confess I feel that way sometimes with all the causes that are good and righteous and deserve my attention and support.
Two people have helped me: Eugene Peterson and Thomas Kelly.
Eugene says a congregation should be clear about the assignment when they ordain a pastor.  Here is how he puts it in “Working The Angles.” “There are a lot of other things to be done in this wrecked world and we are going to be doing at least some of them but if we don’t know the basic terms with which we are working, the foundational realities with which we are dealing – God, kingdom, gospel – we are going to end up living futile fantasy lives.  Your task is to keep telling the basic story representing the presence of the Spirit insisting on the priority of God, speaking the biblical words of command and promise and invitation.”  I am not a pastor but I have taken this to mean there are things in my life that require my focus and my utmost attention.  Many things are good but not my assignment.
I learned from Thomas Kelly, Quaker author of the last century that “God more powerfully speaks within you and me to our truest selves in our truest moments and disquiets us with the world’s needs.  By inner persuasions God draws us to a few very definite tasks – OUR tasks, God’s burdened heart particularizing God’s burden in us.”
So, I do what I can do about those few things God has assigned me.  Otherwise I live in fear that like Oscar Schindler “I could have done more” about so many things or I succumb to the temptation to make the list of causes longer each day.  There are a few things that I know are mine – but only a few. I hope you know what are yours.