It's inventory time.
Time to take stock of my existence so far.

My life has always been about me. Sure, there've been times ( maybe only moments but moments nonetheless) where I've put aside my selfishness long enough to actually do something meaningful (or somewhat meaningful) for another human being -- yet for the most part I'm all about me, doing what needs to be done for my personal survival and, hopefully, success. Think about it: what could possibly be more important than myself?

And then God slaps stuff like this in front of me:

Quake kids sold to sex trade
Dean Nelson, Islamabad

October 24, 2005 SIX-YEAR-OLD Aisha loves the orange blouse and jeans given to her by the kind woman who rescued her from the chaos of the Kashmir earthquake. She snuggles up to the woman, trying to forget the devastation of her village home and the deaths of her parents 16 days ago.

What Aisha does not know is that the woman, Kausar, is a prostitute who has bought her from relatives for 50,000 rupees ($1500) and plans to put her to work in the sex trade as soon as she reaches puberty.

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She will auction the girl's virginity when she reaches puberty and expects to get up to $4700 for that alone. "She could start work as soon as she has her first period," Kausar said.

If Aisha refuses to work as a prostitute, she will be sold to a pimp.

(full article)

I read that story last night and I felt nauseous. I felt empty. I felt shallow. I felt angry. I felt helpless, frustrated, mad that I'm so useless. I've become this self-centered, self-enclosed, self-righteous whiner who is so caught up in his own trivial 'challenges' that he can't see the truth: Life, real Life, is bigger and more important than his own.

After reading that I started to think about my own problems -- you know, being short rent money; having a 'rough' time with mid-term exams; not knowing what to wear in the morning; not knowing what to make for supper; wondering how I'm going to get to the movie store to return my movie before it's overdue. Hard stuff. Real 'challenging' stuff. Life-and-death stuff.

I wake up some mornings wondering what I'm alive, why I bother going through the motions and putting in any effort and trying to stay afloat when the whole ocean feels like it's meant for nothing more than to swallow me whole. And then I hear things like this. Kids. Little kids. Innocent, lonely, needy kids being so ripped off and hurt and abused in ways that I can't even fathom. Yet I feel like I have no right to say anything, because I am so self-centered all the time. As if I, of all people, have any right to be upset. After all, don't I contribute to the problem? Doesn't my lack of action, my lack of 'doing' anything make me just another audience - willing to watch and give the appropriate 'ooohs' and 'aaahs', but never getting off the couch to put my money where my mouth is?

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."
(Morgan Freeman, Se7en)

I've been feeling really challenged lately to live my life much more 'purposefully' - as in, behaving like I'm not just a result of happenstance but a consciously and purposefully invented being. We've been reading the book "The Purpose Driven Life" at church the last few weeks. Honestly, I was really skeptical before picking it up - I'd avoided it this long basically because, well, it just seemed like another Christian fad, another excuse to make some money (see "The Prayer of Jabez"). And yet despite my mental objections, I started reading it and actually found myself both challenged and encouraged. Life is more than nothing. Life is more than me. Life is meaningful. Life is all about God.

After reading that story, about all the little kids who are being put through so much unimaginable crap, I feel like I'm starting to get it -- my life has nothing to do with me. It was never meant to. My life is a breath of air, a wind, a fog, a mist. It will be come and gone within moments. Wasting it away on myself is pointless. It's empty. I want to live my life with the passion of a man with a mission, a goal, a finish line to reach. And for me, that means I want to help people. I have no delusions of grandeur, no fantasies of saving the world, no dreams of being famous or becoming a household name - I don't want anything I do to ever be about me. I want my actions to affect people in such a way that when I'm dead all that I leave behind is Jesus. It may sound trite, it may sound cliche, it may even sound insincere - but I don't care. I just want to live my life for more than me. Because there is so much more than me.

Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.
(James 1:27, NLT)

If you are at all interested in reading up about some of the stuff that goes on all over the world with slavery and human trafficking, here are a couple of sites to look at:

Free the Slaves
Anti-Slavery International

No one can solve every problem or help every person or fix every broken thing. But I think most of us tend to give up before we've even started. I don't want to live like that anymore. How can I go to God and ask Him to help me in my time of need when I won't go and help others in there's? The sign of a selfish heart, and therefore a sign of a heart very unlike Jesus', is one that won't see the needs of other people and step up to do what they can to help fill them.

I have a selfish heart. But I want to change.