Today is Hunger Awareness Day. We ‘celebrated’ it today at school, and my eyes were opened. At lunch time the whole school, about thirty-two of us, were all gathered into one room. We each picked a number out of a hat, and that determined your status. Four people were wealthy. They sat down to eat with fine china and a full course meal–ham, potatoes, salad, corn, fruit, and cupcakes. Then there were the middle-class people, who were allowed to eat rice and beans to their hearts’ content. Next were the poor, which is the group I landed in. We were rationed a small bowl of rice and beans, which was all we got. Then there were four beggars, and, you guessed it– they had to beg for their lunches. However, since the four people who were rich were very kind and soft-hearted, the beggars ended up eating better than the middle-class people did. At that point, almost everyone wanted to be a beggar.

About 25,000 people die every day from hunger. That comes to about one person every three seconds. Three seconds!

When I’m hungry, I go to the fridge or the pantry to get something to eat. It doesn’t matter if I’ve eaten several times today already. I’m hungry, so I eat. But then I don’t know what to eat because I have so many choices. Or maybe I complain because I can’t find the exact thing I want. So I go to the store and buy it. And while I’m there, I may as well buy a few other things that look good. And if it’s a little expensive, well, so what, right? I’m hungry and I’m craving it, so I’ll buy it. So let’s say now that an hour has passed since I first became “hungry.” In that hour, approximately 1200 people have died. From starvation. They died because they’ve never had a full, nutritious meal in their entire lives. I have three a day. Plus snacks. I eat whenever I want to. I never give it a second thought. Food is at my disposal. Our pantry, fridge, and two big freezers are packed with food. My house is a miniature grocery store. The shelves in the fridge have containers stacked on top of each other because there’s not enough room for all our food. I shove things into the freezer and complain when the door won’t shut because it’s overflowing. The pantry is crowded. The canning shelves are full. I throw food away because it’s a few days old, or because it’s a little burned, or because it tastes just a little bit odd. How many people could live on the food that I throw away without a second thought? My cat eats better than they do.

But not anymore. I can’t live in this gluttony and overeating and waste anymore. Not when millions are dying because of it. I buy things I don’t need all the time. New clothes. New shoes. Perfume. Pictures. Music. Movies. Why don’t I invest the money God has given to me in something that will last? Why don’t I buy coat for the shivering child who has none? Give a pair of shoes to the man whose feet are bleeding from walking on the hard ground? Give a meal to the family who hasn’t eaten anything worthwhile for days? How do we so-called Christians sleep at night in our big comfortable houses, our comfortable beds, with our stomachs full, and our closets overflowing, when all around the world people are dying because we don’t have the decency to share? When we don’t have the compassion to care for them. To “sell what we have and give to the poor,” or, at least, stop buying what we don’t need and give to them instead? They’re dying, not knowing that there’s a God who loves them, because those who call themselves His people are too inconvenienced to tell them. We need to wake up! We shelter ourselves from it because it makes us uncomfortable, or at least, it should. I know it does that to me.

I now realize how much I take for granted. How many blessings I have that I don’t even think about or feel thankful for. And I have to ask myself the question: “Why me? What did I ever do to deserve being so blessed? Why did I get to be the one who was chosen to have such an easy life, to be well fed, to have a closet and dresser overflowing with clothes, to have a nice, warm house, to have a job, to get an education, to live in a free country? Why am I not one of the millions who are suffering from hunger, cold, persecution, terrible living conditions, and sex-trafficking? How did I get to be the one who was born in a Christian home and experience the love of Jesus, when so many others are dying without hope, never even hearing His name?” And I have come to one conclusion:

I am not here for myself.

I was blessed so that I can help others. I was put here, in my situation, in this time, with my privileges and my abilities, so that I can help others. So I can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, care for the sick, and visit those who are in prison. So that I can show the love of Jesus to a broken and lost world. To show them there is hope when they feel they have none.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Before today, I knew there were people in the world who needed help. I knew people were starving, sick, and dying. And I thought I cared. But you couldn’t tell that very easily.

Before now, maybe you didn’t know either. But now you do know. And now I must ask you a question:

What will you do?