For Me, or for Humanity

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.” –James 5:1

I remember being stressed upon me from the very earliest days of my life that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Now this is great, and in and of itself I don’t have a problem with it, when it is understood in its right context. However, the problem is that we understand it within our plan, and not God’s plan. In other words, we think that God blesses us so that we can live in the upper tier of society, or so that we can one-up our neighbor when it comes to having the most or the nicest toys. All this and yet we claim to have a sacrificing God. We claim that Jesus came and denied himself so that he might die for our sins, yet we can’t see past ourselves.

It seems that we focus an awfully lot on God’s will for my life without ever taking into account God’s will for humanity. This has to change. To think that we are favored above the poor in God’s eyes is a farce. If there are people living in poverty around us and yet we have an abundance, we have to consider what we can sacrifice to improve their lives. And this cannot be forced upon us, but come from our own desire to see the basic needs of humans met.

It just can’t stop with our neighbors either. We must also look to how we can make a difference around the world. There are millions still going hungry and without clean drinking water, not even to mention the billions who have never heard the Gospel, let alone don’t even have a Bible in their own language.

So are you looking for God’s plan for your life, or are you looking for God’s plan for humanity? Because what you are looking for will greatly affect what you find.