a l i v e & a w a k e

Just watched “Lord of War” recently. For some reason it has been probably the most impacting movie as far as dealing with the issue of poverty, war and injustice in our world, mainly 3^rd world countries.

I will try not to give away the plot if you are about to watch it but Nicolas Cage is known as the ‘lord of war’ because he sells arms to countries with civil war or upheaval. He is profitable because men hate each other and use bullets and guns to do solve their problems. The movie portrays this as a ‘necessary evil’ in our world today.

Lately I have been watching a lot news, movies and documentaries on the poverty of countries like Africa, India, and South America.

 My wife is a part of World Vision and takes many trips and edits a lot of footage of the horrific scenes and evidence of how evil humankind can be. I see so much effort generated to get food, money, supplies to cure preventable diseases, and help people in communities to develop their own ways to sustain a way of life. This effort is needed and very noble but it has been lacking because it does not hit what I would call ‘the big issue’. It hit me again in “Lord of war” of the complicated level that plays into poverty and governmental corruptness. It’s a spiritual war. I see it like this:

“I think God is concerned with poverty on this earth. I think it has to bother Him, He is an abundant provider just waiting to give abundantly!  I think He doesn’t care as much for the physical poverty as much as He does for the spiritual poverty of separateness and emotional disconnect. This spiritual poverty is more like the first sin of humankind in a garden long ago. It is the desire to be more than God –pride. This poverty is the reason the earth is barren in many areas. This poverty is the reason that millions of people have died by curable diseases. This poverty is the reason millions die in wars all over this earth. This disease needs more resources and supplies than what is given-yet is free.”

This poverty is much more subtle and harder to diagnose and cure. Chances are if you are reading this on a computer, you are probably in the midst of the most dark, evil and horrific form of this spiritual poverty –curable spiritual poverty.

North America, Western Society or formerly known as ‘1^st world country’ is the most deep and damaged in spiritual lethargy and apathy. We are lulled to sleep by so many things that keep us from being close to God. Our move to help other countries with physical poverty is probably the only strand of hope that we have from being totally devoid of help. In my opinion, we need to help those countries more for our well being then theirs.  What does help look like for our situation? 

I wonder more if the ‘food’, ‘shelter’ and ‘clothing’ for 1^st world countries looks like community, discipleship/spiritual companions, and being neighborly?