Can I really DO something about Paris?

When you hear about something like what happened in Paris, you want to do something.  But what can you do?  

People on Facebook are changing their profiles to french flag colors to show solidarity.  Cool,

but, honestly, what does that do?

A man I respect, Wayne Jacobsen, wrote the following post that I find quite significant.  In it, he gives us some real answers to the question, "What can I do about what happened in Paris?"  Check it out:

We can grieve for the people in Paris. We can pray for God’s intervention in these desperate circumstances and for the wisdom of global leaders to deal with all the chaos in our world. But it will help to realize that our media overwhelms us with storylines that invite our emotional responses to situations we cannot influence. And that can be crippling. We grieve for people we don’t know and fear circumstances we can’t control. 

I don’t know how to comfort the people in Paris, or to end Islamic fundamentalist aggression in the world. But I do know how to love the people around me today. I know people going through painful circumstances and grief of their own and can comfort them. I know those who treat me with disdain and betrayal and what it means to love them is very clear. 

We can’t really love “the world” in any meaningful way. It’s too abstract and generalized at a macro level to make any difference, but is richly powerful in the immediate circumstances of our own life.
 

Is that why Jesus asked us to, “love one another,” not to love the crowds or the whole world? Love is applied in the singular, not the plural. 

If you want to be the change in the world, get your eyes off of circumstances you don’t control and

on to those people and circumstances right around you where your loving can make a difference. 

If you grieve for the people in Paris and feel powerless to help, think of someone you know going through deep grief or challenge and find a way to encourage them today.  Instead of living in fear or frustration of ISIS, find someone who has done you wrong and ask Jesus if there is a way to love him or her today that will begin to reverse the cycle of evil that only adds pain to pain.

We overcome evil in the world not by fussing and fretting, but by loving some one in front of us.  Every act of generosity and kindness brings light into the world.  Every time you comfort a broken heart, offer kindness to a stranger, or make time for someone who is lonely you pour a bit more of the kingdom in the world.

Wherever our fear gives way to love in the immediacy of our own circumstances, the world changes a little and the power of wickedness is broken. Find someone to love, encourage, or bless today and you will have been part of something significant.  You can leave the bigger things in Father’s hands, who is well up to the challenge. 

I love Jacobsen's solution because we all can do this, even teens.  In the words of a famous saying, "It's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."