To Change We must be more than sad

​Yesterday, I shared the sermon Andy Stanley delivered to North Point Community Church Sunday. I said it was the most powerful sermon I'd ever heard. One day later I stand by that. As such, I'm going to spend this week processing some of the things Andy said.

I internalize things better when I write about them.

It's my way of thinking out loud. It's my way of reflecting on the things I think I believe. It's my way of pushing myself to be better.

Stanley opened his sermon with this idea. Sad is how we feel about things that happen to people "out there." Sad is what gets stirred inside us when bad things happen to other people. And because it's an emotion that usually doesn't get triggered by something that's directly affecting us, it's rarely an emotion that challenges us to fight for the things happening to someone else.

When he started talking about this idea all I could think about was my trip to Honduras last August. Prior to going to Honduras, it was easy for me to be sad about people living in extreme poverty. Show me a picture of a starving kid on television and I can get as sad as anyone.

I could also move on and forget about it as fast as anyone.

Then I went and lived in Honduran communities for 5 days. When you've lived and seen and heard and touched poverty, you forget all about sad. When you live in someone else's struggles, you can no longer walk away and pretend someone else's struggles are not your struggles.

Nothing diminishes your own sadness more than walking so intimately in the shoes of that which makes you sad.

For a long time I considered myself a good and caring person because poverty made me sad. When I left Honduras, I felt much less than good because sad was all I'd ever been for those people.

I came home and I've been recommitted to doing all I can to make a difference in systemic poverty around the world. I realize a lot of people can't afford the luxury of my sadness.

To so many people around the world who are living in poverty, my sadness is no help to them. My sadness doesn't demonstrate I get the significance of their struggles. My sadness does nothing to bring more opportunities to their lives.

I hear Andy Stanley loud and clear on this one. We have an opportunity to look at the television and be sad about all we are seeing. And if we turn the television off and walk away and all we are is once again sad about the state of our country and our communities and of our brothers and sisters, we will miss the significance of the moment.

We will miss an opportunity to be moved to action instead of getting lost in emotions that might move us to tears, but fail to move us inside the lives of people who need us most.

I encourage you to watch Andy Stanley's sermon here: https://northpoint.org/messages/this-human-race