How Much Do We Care (I Care) for Others?

In the past few months, and literally the past 24 hours I have been evaluating how much I personally care for others. Not to put a burden on others please permit me to share a bit of my thought process as I have been evaluating how much I care for othoers.

Twenty-four hours ago (May 16th) I was well aware of the fact that a town in northern Alberta, Slave Lake, was suffering the effects of a massive wildfire that had swept through the town of 7,000. The pictures on the television and reports on the Internet were heartbreaking, but to me they did not touch the core of my heart at the time. However in the next few hours that would change. As many of you know I work in a public/elementary library and so we have many people use our facilities. Around 2:30 a couple came in with one of our patrons and I overheard them talking about the wildfire as they went on the Internet. To make a long story short I discovered that the couple had literally lost everything in the fire as they had to flee from Slave Lake and only had about 5 minutes notice that they had to get out of town. The gentleman shared with me that one of the fires had literally started across the field from their place and for a while they had believed the fire would go the other way, only to discover the wind shifted and they only had time to flee with the clothes on their backs. They even had to leave one vehicle behind, which actually was shown on a number of internet news websites! Sure they may be covered by insurance as long as insurance companies don't push for the fact that this is an "act of God" but it really made me think about how much I care.

I admit there are many stories of people suffering, be it in Alberta, Japan, Africa, or in other places and there can be a tendency to have "care" burnout. I admit I am not a social activist by any stretch of the imagination as I have real problems with the political agendas of certain parties and organizations that advocate social change for the sake of change. However I have been struck that even though I personally have very little in the way of material goods, and can't be involved in a lot of manual labor due to health concerns I want to care for others as I am sure other people do too.

In Scripture we are told that it is foolish (Goldsmith paraphrase) to say to someone in need be warmed and I will pray for you and do nothing. I have been personally challenged in literally the last day to evaluate what I can do financially for those less fortunate. I need to ask myself and I ask you how much do we really care for others? Am I a Christian only in doctrine, having received Christ as my Savior, and yet watch others suffer. I admit I don't have all the answers but I pray that God will give me wisdom and all of us wisdom when we think of how much do we really care for others?

Thanks for hearing me out. God bless.