A Little Less Conversation and a Little More Action Please

A lack of perspective brings a distorted view of reality. The swine flu spreading through the world makes my point. The World Health Organization has warned that this strain of flu is blooming into a “pandemic” and has urged nations to begin measures to counter it as best they can. As I write this, 150 have died in Mexico, 1 has died in the United States, and perhaps several dozen in other places in the world. As a result, this disease dominates the news and is making people fearful of contact with others. Right now Tanya and I are actually in Brownsville, Texas, where the first casualty in the US crossed the border from Mexico, and we have seen local people wearing health masks in hopes that it might prevent them from catching the disease.

Yet you might be surprised to know that the common flu that we are familiar with causes about 35,000 deaths per year in the United States, and between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths worldwide. The numbers from the swine flu are paltry compared to that. In addition, every year 2.1 million children five years old or younger die of diarrhea caused by the rotavirus. We have lived every day this year in peace and tranquility without any news reports about this killer disease while about a million little children have already died because of it. Automobile accidents accounted for 37,313 US deaths last year, but we aren’t afraid to get in our cars and drive to the grocery, even though the likelihood of dying in an accident—even in Brownsville, TX—is far greater than contracting and dying from the swine flu.

We often care more about the dramatic than we do about the truly perilous. New dangers shock our sensibilities more than grave dangers. Threats that we have learned to live with for a long while fade from our consciousness, even though the risk may not be reduced.

The economic crisis gets our attention far more than the spiritual crisis the world is experiencing. We feel a deeper concern with our 401k’s than we do with the declining moral climate in our nation. Many churches expend more energy changing worship styles than they ever do strategizing to reach their communities.

The greatest loss of perspective is that we have learned to view those who are lost around us with indifference and detachment. While they perish, we play. While they die without Christ, we live without telling them. Nothing is more real than hell, but one wouldn’t know that by the way most Christians live.

God grant us perspective.