I watched another one of those videos on You Tube that showed what life is like for those folks in places like Mumbai and Dhaka – and so many others – and it’s really gut wrenching for me. I don’t watch them to gloat – not by a long shot. I’m fascinated and horrified to see things like the mountain of trash 70 – meters high outside the confines of Delhi. The toxic and polluted waterways in the areas of the slums of Lagos and in the Philippines are a sad sight to see. Some of the documentary visited cities in the US where the homeless people try to survive in tents or just out on the sidewalks, but the tent cities of Los Angeles are luxury condos compared to some of the morbid slums of giant cities in Asia and Africa. There are literally hundreds of millions of souls on this planet scrapping for everything they can get/use to survive. Some of the video shots showed people in more than one of the places where the garbage trucks bring the city trash just waiting for the truck to dump so they could be the first in line to start rummaging through the garbage for recyclables – and food scraps – anything!
The air in Lahore, Pakistan is so polluted the narrator said just breathing the air there for one day is equivalent to their lungs as smoking 50 cigarettes. There’s a lot worse things than nicotine in that smog too. As the video shots run in the documentary, I find myself praying for those poor folks, people who will never in their whole lives get a breath of clean air or feel the joy of hearing wild birdsong out in a secluded forest. Folks who don’t even have clean water to drink or to cook with, much less able to stop by one of the cold Ozark springs for a draught of pure water. No, every moment of their lives is consumed in a never-ending struggle to just survive another day, surrounded at all times by sweat-soaked fellow travelers who are fighting the same hunger.
Here in America, we can’t imagine what it’s like to be in constant competition with other people for a claim to a plastic bottle, a used one, not one filled with clean water but simply an item having some pittance of value anyway. There are places in those packed slums where a single toilet is shared by dozens – in some cases hundreds – of people. In some of the slums in Africa and the Philippines where people exist on floating villages or stilt hovels, folks just relieve themselves in the water that surrounds them. There’s no other place to throw the trash either, so it goes into the waterways too. If they are to get a bath, they must use the same water. This is the case in India where the Ganges River is the predominant water source. They inter their dead in the same water they bathe in.
I don’t know of any answer to this dilemma. Over population is the root cause, but what can they do? Reproduction is indelibly etched into the genetic code of humans as with other life forms, so on it goes. There is an ultimate answer for the unfortunate poor of the world however, and it is to get to know Jesus Christ, but alas, there are too few people interested in working to harvest these manifold cities. But with such tools as we can get our hands on, those of us who wish to help in the harvest must do what we can. These people need to know there is a better place awaiting beyond their noisome and overcrowded existences. That would have to go a long way towards giving meaning to their struggle. Working toward the promises of Jesus, His Kingdom, His gift of eternal life to those who simply believe in Him – would be for them, as it is for all of us, a hope for something infinitely better, but in their case maybe more urgently and desperately needed, and in this hope they can live and mature with the steadfast promise of Jesus.
According to scientists, people of the earth are able to discern around 93 billion light years of our observable universe. One light year is an unfathomable distance. Even one light minute is unimaginable. We don’t have a clue how many universes there may be either, or if Heaven is even part of – or completely something different from what we are able to see, so at any rate God has a lot of room for his servants – there’s plenty of room in the Heavenly Kingdom for each and every one of the people of the earth. It won’t be crowded – we’ll each have our own majestic mansion there, prepared by none other than Jesus Christ Himself. There’ll be plenty of fresh, pure, clean water flowing through the new paradise – the River of Life. We’ll have wonderful fruit from the Tree of Life which produces different fruit every month. Being in His blessed presence is going to occupy our whole existence there, and being in His presence and the beloved presence of the Lamb is going to be an absolutely unimaginably joyous experience and we will be able to enjoy it forever! The way the apostle put it: [1 Corinthians 2:9]: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” That’s a promise from our Savior and He will keep it, but we must believe in Him and be faithful to Him, and love Him.
When our belief in Jesus grows into actual expectation, our hope becomes manifest in our hearts and all of a sudden, we come to understand why the effort is worth our time and energy. Peter mentioned in one of his epistles about the morning star rising in our hearts and I’m convinced that’s what happens when we get to that blessed revelation – our faith grows into knowledge; believing becomes knowing! [2 Peter 1:19]: “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts…”
If this post makes it into your hands, take heart, there’s a better life beyond this one. Although this site doesn’t get a huge volume of traffic, folkpotpourri nevertheless has readers in several of the countries mentioned in this post, so please share this with someone – maybe it can get to some of those folks I’ve been talking about who so desperately need hope for a better existence. If you follow folkpotpourri, you already know this site isn’t monetized so I’m not after clicks nor for any selfish reason – when I ask you to share this, it’s because I sincerely want to use this website to help people to learn about Jesus. And I’d like for my readers to experience the spiritual lift we get from knowing we are serving Him by helping others get to Him. Our true reward will be when He says: “Well done, my good and faithful servant” – the very definition of success in victory over this life!
When we get to the end of our journey here, there awaits a door we must enter. Every human being goes through that door, but only the called, chosen, and faithful will be greeted by the Savior and invited into His blessed Kingdom where we shall live forever! In that moment we will understand that what we always thought was life here wasn’t really life at all – we’ll begin a new life, the real life at last, with no worry, no pain, no sadness – only perfect peace and above all, love – and it will be a love we can feel, I believe kind of physically, like stepping into a great tidal wave of love and joy to forever be immersed in, except it will be spiritual and much more predominant in our new life than we could ever imagine. God is love, and we’ll finally realize how profound that Love is!
Even though we don’t have any way of knowing how deep God’s love is, we should nevertheless pray for Him to show us how to love – our neighbors, but mostly Him. We should set our hearts to love, even our enemies, and I believe the harder we try to love others – and God – we can begin to understand deeper things about the Lord and His ways. Of course, this also requires spending time in the Bible, so if you don’t have one, there are Christian ministries in every country, contact one, the Bibles are usually free. If you can’t get your hands on a Bible, leave your contact information in the comments and this site will do whatever I can to help you get one even if I have to send one myself.
Live in the assurance of His promises and never doubt for an instant that He will keep them for Heaven and earth will pass away but His Words will stand forever. Today is the time to pass His gospel on to others – time is growing short and the harvest is ripe – jump in!
May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.
MK