Shampoo and $2 meal deals from Taco Bell

It started out simply enough. I was washing my hair when this odd thought popped in my head. To be fair, many of my thoughts could be considered odd, yet this one was very odd. I simply thought: "Matt Moore, one of the few men in the world to wash his hair this frequently." I told you, the thought was odd. (I wash my hair once a day, in case you were wondering.) But it reminded me of how blessed I really am and the fact that many in this world struggle to simply survive.

Yesterday I bought a new phone, and that cost me about $90. It's not an expensive phone, I bought it from wal-mart. (insert "you know your from Tennessee when..." joke here) But my phone has internet, so I can check espn.com for the latest in sports news. (I really like that feature!) The reason I say this is because I have internet access just about everywhere I go, but how many people in the world have never even used the internet before? Much less have access whenever they want to the latest news, weather, sports, funny youtube videos, and random tweets/facebook drama? When you consider the overall human population on this planet, I bet it's a smaller number than you think. Go back to the money I spent on the phone, $90. The human population is approximately 6 billion people, and roughly 2 billion, or 1/3 of those people survive on less than $2 dollars a day. That means that the cost of my "inexpensive" phone is equivalant to what many people, who see the same stars I do, who were created by the same God I was created by, and who share the same atmosphere as I, could survive off of for 45 days. That's how blessed I am.

Consider the shampoo I use, (and was using when the thought struck me) it costs me about $2. So the shampoo I use daily costs me the same amount as what 1/3 of the inividuals who share the planet with me have to live off of for the whole day.

Jesus says this in Matthew 6:25:
"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

Let's look at that verse a little closer, remembering that about 1/3 of the Earth's population survives on $2 a day.
The clothes I put on today? They probably cost about $80 for the whole outfit. That means that with the money I spent on the clothes I wore today, 40 people could have survived on $2.
The food I ate? probably around $30. That's another 15 people who could have survived today on just $2. That means that with just the money I spent on the clothes I wore, and the food I ate today, 55 of the 2 billion people who survive on $2 a day could have survived on their usual $2 a day.
That's a staggering thought. We worry about what outfit to wear, and many people have to wear the same clothes daily for many years.

I usually spend about 2 or 3 minutes each day trying to choose what pair of shoes to wear, when there are millions of people who would be overjoyed to have one pair of shoes to wear everyday. We have so much, but we are always wanting more, while most of the world simply wants things that we take for granted. We are blessed like crazy, and one reason we are so materially blessed is so that we can share God's love, mercy, and grace with an unsaved world. Those who are poor, mistreated, and neglected are people too. They are God's creation and He wants to show His perfect love for them, and Church, that is our job. I'll never look at a $2 meal-deal from taco bell the same way, what to me is a $2 snack is worth an entire days budget to 1/3 of the population that share the same sun as me. And Jesus loves those people the same way he loves us. May we not only have eyes of Jesus to see those who need our help, but the heart that motivates us to love those who need his love, and the hands to serve them so that they see Him through our actions.

In His Dust,
Matt
(Numbers 6:24-26)