One advantage to having a blog is that I can occasionally take up my megaphone, clamber up on a soapbox, and go at it. So here goes…
I think we need to stop trying to motivate people with statistics. The world is full of gut-wrenching, heart-breaking statistics. Millions live in poverty, millions of babies are being aborted, millions of girls are trapped in the sex industry, millions of people have never heard the gospel. Each of these is a real, legitimate, heart-breaking problem, and we need courageous people who are willing to put their lives on the line for these causes.
But here’s the thing: I’m called to love my neighbor, not a statistic. I’m called to do good as I have opportunity. I’m called to minister primarily to the man next door, not in Saudi Arabia.
See, statistics do two things to me…
First, they make me feel like a wicked, useless, fruitless wretch.
They condemn me. They crush me. There are millions living in poverty, and here I am eating French fries and drinking Coca-Cola, like I don’t have a care in the world. What a loser I am! How can I call myself a Christian when there are so many people in poverty, and I’m not doing a single thing about it? Maybe I’m the only one, but that’s what statistics do to me. They don’t inspire faith in me. They don’t draw out fresh passion for God. They crush me with condemnation because I’m not helping enough. I feel like I should be doing something, but I have no idea what to do.
The second thing that statistics do is fill me with fear/anger/despair.
Whoa, millions of babies have been aborted! Where is God? Why isn’t he doing something? Something must be done now! Everything is out of control! We must mobilize, militarize, take to the streets.
The reality is God is here. He’s in the middle of all the messes. He is sovereign and just. Every wickedness will be repaid, and every injustice will be righted. Our God is not absent, and he is far greater than any problem that confronts us. Things are not spiraling out of control. Nothing has escaped his ever-watchful, ever-caring eye.
So should we never use statistics again? No, but maybe we should use them a bit differently.
