Maintaining a Global Perspective on God’s Love

Several years back, this item appeared on a Payleitner family shopping list: “shower curtain for the boys’ bathroom.” Our four boys were past the age of teddy bears and cartoon monkeys, so the goal was to find something that would keep the water off the bathroom floor and not clash with the wallpaper.

What we ended up purchasing turned out to be a fantastic, mind-expanding addition to their educational and spiritual well-being; a clear shower curtain with a visual representation of all 190-plus countries on the planet. It was an easy and obvious purchase.

Suddenly, every shower became a geography lesson. While they lathered and rinsed, they noticed how three fairly large western states bordered the Pacific Ocean and fourteen smaller states bordered the Atlantic. They identified for themselves the boot of Italy, the expanse of the former Soviet Union, the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and the islands of Iceland, Ireland, Madagascar, Cuba, Tasmania, and Indonesia. Most important, the six-foot-wide shower curtain served as visual proof that a world exists beyond their own neighborhood.

On God’s shopping list is for each of us to develop a heart for people in every corner of the earth. According to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’s final instruction to his followers was to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19-20). That outreach begins with our families, neighborhood, and community. But we also have a responsibility to move beyond our small sphere of influence and outside our comfort zone.

For some that means praying intentionally for lost people in faraway places you will never visit in this life. For others that might mean packing up your belongings and moving to the other side of the world to share the gospel with people who live on one of those brightly colored spots on your shower curtain.

Investing our hearts, minds, and resources in those lives is easier than ever. Technology and instant communication can make us aware of their hopes, dreams, needs, and gifts and even enable us to share in their day-to-day experiences. Ministries like Voice of the Martyrs, Prison Fellowship, and Bible League know how to cut through the bureaucracies to deliver truth and love in tangible ways. Those kinds of trusted, established ministries are always looking for individuals like you with whom to partner.

As our minds attempt to grasp the idea of close to eight billion people living in 190 countries, a humility should probably wash over each of us. In one sense, we’re each just a speck of dust. But God’s love gives us purpose. His heart is big enough to love you, me, and every one of our neighbors on the planet. And he wants us to do the same.

Next time you start to feel like the world revolves around you, spin that globe, study that map, or flip through that atlas. If you start to feel small, that’s okay. Just remember you have the ability and responsibility to plug into the power that created not just the world but the entire universe.