The following was written by Carl Worthington, the guy behind Trade Your iPod for Life.
Before I start, this is a question that challenges me constantly. How do I reconnect? How can I make a difference in my generation yet exist in a relatively insulated bubble. How can I stand against poverty and still live in wealth, compared to most of the planet. This is real life friction meets faith.
Frank posed two great questions on the Greenroom last Sunday night. “In one word how would you describe the world?” and “What do you think is the single greatest issue that affects our world today?”
“Disconnected” and “Poverty”
We are disconnected from creation due to cities, concrete boxes 48 channels on sky and 39.95 broadband. Beauty and hand woven complexity is just moments from our door. Just take a walk in your closest forest to experience.
We are disconnected from our neighbour, too busy to communicate, slow down, take stock, chew the fat. With all of our “time saving technology” we really are too impatient to wait for the microwave to finish, EFTPOS transaction to complete, fellow human being to just finish their sentence without jamming in a rebuttal.
We are disconnected from the Divine, following our owns wills, amassing piles of stuff, toys, wants, envies, labels, catch phrases, snappy slogans “Time saving technology…” when all He wants is our attention and communion.
We are disconnected from other cultures, people groups and nations, especially if you live in Aotearoa. Encapsulated by water we are quite isolated from countries like India, Africa, Haiti let alone the rest of the world. Each of them, experiencing ruthless and extreme poverty, terrorism, corporate greed, corruption, mass starvation, limited or no water supply. The list goes on.
We are disconnected… from each other, from our planet, from God.
We are disconnected from poverty. People just like you and I. With hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled unless we share our resources…our money our ATTENTION.
Disconnection causing spiritual poverty in our hearts as we sell ourselves short of the bigger picture, the final game plan, Gods still small voice – for what? Something fleeting and already rusting.
How to reconnect?
Honour God seek Him with all of heart, lay bare the gritty bits, and wrestle with our humanity in light of eternity. Personally the scale of poverty punches a hole in my heart leaving me very overwhelmed. When time has finished its reel and we stand alone before the one who built the universe…His eyes like a roaring furnace asking “When I was hungry, did you feed me…” how will you reply?
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. – Isaiah 58:6-8 (NIV)
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Go hard Carl. And to stay connected with God and with each other we need to take on the needs of our brother. Is this not what “True religion” is? To help the widow and the orphan in their distress? James 1:27 We have been given the examination question that will be asked of us on judgement day; “what did we do with the poor?” Matt 25
Afterall this is where we will find Jesus. “Jesus is with the poor and he is with us if we are with them!” Not my words but Bono’s. How serious are we about being followers of Jesus?
I’ll do my bit to reconnect with creation tomorrow, and paddle down a river.
Seriously i think it’s vital to get away into creation as often as we can as it’s a powerful place to connect with God.
However their is a danger in isolation as well, before i spend time in creation i need to ensure i am informed of global issues, so while connecting with God in his amazing creation i have questions to ask him and things to think about
Thanks crew for your kind comments. Many streams of influence went into this article, Rob bell, World banks poverty survey of 60000 people and especially Franks (jedi of social justice!) article on ‘Tension’ i think thats the name? this article really impacted me. Frank brought to light the tension he faces every day living in the west with an abundance and yet having knowledge of extremely impoverished people which became almost too overwhelming. he also commented on how intrinsically he knew it was right to give to the poor but the tension that followed – am I doing this for the right reason or just to feel good and get those warm fuzzies. ‘Real life friction meets faith…’ I challenge you reader do something radical for the poor this year, give what you can and help restore lives, Jesus did it why can’t we
SORRY FRANK IF I HAVE MIS QUOTED YOU – CARL 
Frank can’t live with his millions because there are poor people?
…
He could give it all to me. I’d have no problem with living with it