My soul cries out

This is probably going to come out very random and difficult to follow but it must come out.

I am struggling with purpose right now. I am sickened by the way my culture tells me to live and I desperately want to rise above it. I want to be better, do better. I just don't know how and it's making me crazy. It's the driving question of my existence.

I'm disgusted with my country and fellow Americans. I'm appalled by our selfish consumerism. Dare I say it? I believe our constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness may be slowly killing us all. We are so self absorbed. As a whole we tend to put our personal interests above others. We think that the only thing  matters in life is our happiness and we will do anything to get it. The innocent victims of this mentality be damned!

I want new clothes and I want them cheap. So I will ignore that they were made in a sweatshop by children who are starving to death.

I love chocolate and flowers so I will ignore that our imports largely come from countries who do not practice fair trade and treat people as worth next to nothing. I will ignore the damage done to the environment in order to create these goods.

It is inconvenient for me to have a child right now so I will terminate a life I created.

I want my hair to smell lovely so I will use products that are polluting the planet and rendering our water undrinkable.

I want to lose weight because I live in a country where overindulgence is the norm, where we throw out more food than we eat and ignore that the rest of the world is starving or dying of preventable illnesses.

I know there are starving children around the entire world and even in this country but I would rather spend the mere $30 a month it takes to keep them alive on myself because well, I earned it.

I know women are treated as chattel in most of the world but it's out of sight so I ignore it.

I know children are being sold as sex slaves all over the globe but I refuse to do anything about it because it takes away from my "me" time.

I could go on.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps I should give people the benefit of a doubt, but I can't. My spirit is crying out in agony. How can we ignore the ones so desperately in need and justify it through selfishly pursuing our own happiness?

It is the sense of entitlement that runs rampant in the US that disgusts me so. Americans walk around believing they are somehow superior to the rest of the world by virtue of the fact that they were born here. Somehow that means our lives have more value that the child starving to death in Africa, the woman being burned alive in India or the man who lost his life to genocide the world over.

It's disgusting.

I'm sick of it.

I want desperately to DO something about it, but I don't know what or how. And for that my soul is crying within me.

I refuse to be a happy American christian with 2.5 kids, a house and an SUV. I cannot be that. If that is all I have to show for my life when it is over then I have truly missed the purpose of it all.

I want to move to Africa and perform medical miracles for people. I want to move to Asia and teach children who otherwise would never have an education.  I want to move to China and spread the underground church. I want to stand up for the oppressed, feed the starving, clothe the naked, save the dying. I want to be Jesus to this world, more than anything. But HOW? God I need guidance. I need a pastor to lead me.

Life is too short to waste it on the pursuit of trivial things. All is vanity.

What if God has more in mind for our lives than our mere happiness?

Let it be said of us
While we walked among the living
Let it be said of us
By the ones we leave behind
Let it be said of us
That we lived to be a blessing for life

Let it be said of us
That we gave to reach the dying
Let it be said of us
By the fruit we leave behind
Let it be said of us
That our legacy is blessing for life

This day
You set life, you set death right before us,
This day
Every blessing and curse is a choice now
And we will choose to be a blessing for life

Let it be said of us
That our hearts belonged to Jesus
Let it be said of us
That we spoke the words of life
Let it be said of us
That our heritage is blessing for life

For your Kingdom, for our Children
For the sake of every nation