Think of your worst day. What would it be? Horrible to think about, I know. So let’s take what your second worst day would look like. Or even what you constitute as a regular bad day. What does it consist of?
Maybe a pipe freezes in your basement then bursts, needing repair work when you don’t really have the extra funds to cover it.
Your employer suddenly gets mad at you, only to find a coworker lied about your performance behind your back.
How about you get a bad grade on a test that was essential for you to move forward in a class or a field you desperately needed to do well in.
Car accident. Turns out you didn’t have collision insurance, and you have no idea where the $2,400.00 is going to come from to get your car back on the road, the car that you need to get to and from your job everyday.
And the list goes on. Granted, any one of the scenarios would be unfortunate. And more than likely, you’ve had a variation of one or all of them happen in your life. But the question I’d like you to consider is, does this constitute a truly bad day for you, even in it’s most mild definition?
One thing I struggle with most is that God observes the entire world at one time, not just my world. Which begs me to ask Him, how do my bad days compare relative to the rest of humanity’s bad days? I won’t be so bold as to presume I know God’s actual thoughts on the issues, but a quick look at statistical research allows some fairly reasonable assumptions.
With only 570 million cars distributed among more than 6.69 billion people, about 8.5% of the world’s population owns a vehicle. Fewer still own something a middle class American would consider “nice.” (Just picture a 1980′s rust bucket Toyota from Man On Fire). That means more than 6 billion (six billion) people can’t even imagine owning [in their wildest dreams] what you scorn as a bane to your family budget.
That pipe bursting? Just be glad you haven’t died at the hands of your faucet yet. (You know, that shiny lever over the stainless steel basin in your kitchen that instantly grants you clean water within a few degrees of the temperature you want it at). The UN recently announced that contaminated water has killed more human beings than all our wars combined.
And as for your tests in academia or your vocational trials, be glad you even have the opportunity to go to school or land a decent job. 72 million children are out of school around the world, a figure equivalent to the entire primary school-aged population in Europe and North America. And almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. And not because they want to.
Feeling grateful yet?
Oh, and just in case your worst day ever does happen (which for me would be the unthinkable: losing my wife and children), then you’d join the conservatively estimated 1 million families in Sudan, 1.5 million families in Rwanda, and countless millions of families in Burma, Vietnam, Tibet, and China (to name a few) that have endured–or are currently enduring–daily loss of their loved ones. (For the brave, read the sobering report “Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century” and “Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century“).
I recommend that you gather your loved ones around the kitchen faucet and thank Jesus later tonight. ch: