Get Out and See the World

I found it.  I was walking through piles and mountains of trash.  Cardboard homes are all around me. Someone's sewer bucket is thrown out at our feet.  Then I find the unexpected.  I find a smiling face of a four year old little girl.  A girl whose entire world is the city dump.  She is malnourished, lice in her hair, and wearing what is probably her only set of clothes.  None of this seems to matter to her as I give her hugs and tell her that I love her and so does Jesus.

This was not the first time I found it.  I found it on the face of an older gentleman years before.  I was on a walk out in the country on the island of St. Kitts.  We came to a little neighborhood of homes that we we would refer to in the United States as sheds.  Buildings that we might store shovels and lawn mowers in.  This man lived in one of these homes.  It was about 5ft X 8ft.  On one half he slept and the other half held all of his possessions.  He lived on a pension of $6/year from the sugar factory. As I talked with him I noticed that his home, his money, and his possessions did not define him.  He was happy.  He was smiling.

In order to understand the good life you have to get out and see the world.  Technology has supposedly made our world smaller.  If that is true then why are fewer people seeing it?  We are told that in order to be happy you need more things.  Things will make you happy.  If you want to be more happy you need more things.  If you are unhappy then you do not have enough things.

We live in a society that pulls into their attached garages.  We go in their homes with the windows and doors closed.  We stay in our yards with privacy fences.  We sit on our couches and watch other people live their lives on "reality" television.  We have virtual reality gaming devices.  Now our young men do not have courage to truly battle but what they have learned about life they learned from talk radio while playing "modern" warfare with "friends" they have never met.  Many go to jobs where it is more work to take a vacation so they just continue to work.  We cram our schedules so full we do not have time to help our neighbor.  It is okay because they are to busy to ask.

When you get out of the rut that you call life and start truly seeing the world you will find that true happiness does not come from any of these things.  It does not come from a thing at all.  It is found in the true connections you have with people.  We are designed for relationship.  When we are doing what we are designed to do we will find happiness.  Get out and see the world.  Not the little world you live in.  The world where other people live.  You do not have to cross an ocean or even get on a plane.  Get out and see your neighbor's world.  Get out and see your coworker's world.  When you find yourself happy take a look around and notice who is with you?



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