"Breaking News"...Really?

It is sad, no doubt, when someone passes from this life into the next…especially someone that we connect to in some form or fashion.

But it is more alarming that many of us feel more of a connection with people whom we turn into heroes of the day. Normal folks living abnormal lives in front of the cameras, on stages and on playing fields so that we can have someone “made up” to look up to.

We tend to hold heroes in high regard who have never said a single word to us personally, who don’t know who we are, who would not feel at home in our home, who would not be willing to contribute to putting food on our tables or clothes on our backs…they don’t know us. There is no connection.

It’s called “Breaking News” when something happens to these elite few.

Below is some everyday news that is happening 24/7…

In round numbers there are 7 billion people in the world. Thus, with an estimated 925 million hungry people in the world, or almost 1 in 7 people around the world are hungry…right now.

Children are the most visible victims of under nutrition. Children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness each year. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year--five million deaths.

1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water, roughly one-sixth of the world's population.

2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

Half of the world's hospital beds are filled with people suffering from water related illnesses.

Some 6,000 children die every day from disease associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene - equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing every day.

10 Billion dollars spent on medicines…for pets.

According to the APPA, $3.4 billion dollars was spent on pet services in 2009. Wal-Mart expands its pet grooming facilities further into its stores.

Pet parents are including their pets in their own lifestyles so visits to the spa, exercise regimes, and restaurants have become more common in urban areas.

We estimate the size of the US pet insurance market will grow to $600 million in 2013.

797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.

According to the World Health Organization, some 56 Million deaths occur per year. That works out to about 153,400 per day, or a little more than 100 per minute.

Isaiah 44
9 All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless.
Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.
10 Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing?
11 He and his kind will be put to shame; craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and infamy.
12 The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint.
13 The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.
14 He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
15 It is man’s fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.
16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says, “Save me; you are my god.”
18 They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

Why do we get so caught up in “Breaking News” and not in doing something about the every day news?

Mark 4:9
Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”