Determining Someone’s Worth

In the movie “The Martian” Matt Damon is left stranded on the planet Mars with his fellow astronauts believing he had passed away from a bad storm. Later they discover he is still alive and a huge rescue mission is put in motion in order to bring him home. Billions of dollars and the focus and energy of a huge group of professionals are all spent on getting Matt Damon back alive. As I watched to the movie I found myself thinking about how many starving and hurting people could be saved if the same billions of dollars and energy of the huge group of professionals were spent on them instead. What made Matt Damon so much more valuable than the poor and the orphan?

Here is my opinion: his life weighed heavy on the conscience of his co-workers. They knew him and felt a responsibility for him (some you could say loved him as a friend, but clearly not all of them had strong feelings for him before he was stranded). Then when the people who worked in the same field heard about Matt Damon they too felt a responsibility to bring him home. Although they had different job titles (astronaut, engineer, manager, etc.), they all worked under the umbrella of space exploration. As for the rest of America, their compassion was stirred for Matt Damon because he seemed just like them. If Matt had been Korean then likely America wouldn’t have had the same level of compassion for him, but instead Korea would have.

I remember growing up in America and the news going wild when a little baby girl got trapped in a well (Jessica McClure). Most of America became gripped by this story. There were millions of babies around the world at risk including many in America, but the baby girl trapped in a well was too close to home for many Americas. She wasn’t born of an extremely poor or rich family or a foreign family. Her family seemed like ordinary Americans and so many others in America felt great compassion for them.

The truth is everyone is invaluable: whether rich, poor, foreign, orphan, sinner, saint, child, adult, elder, male, female. While some may be more valuable here on earth in terms of their job and influence (a country would be far more affected by its leader dying than a random elderly person dying), we all have the same value before God. So how do we love people beyond those close to us and those we can relate to?

God doesn’t expect us to sacrifice all we have for any random hurting person. But God wants us to have a love in us that is willing to spend billions of dollars and tons of time and energy to rescue even just one. The more we walk with God, the stronger He will burn in our hearts for specific people. Just as everyone wanted to rescue just Matt Damon, so will God grow our love for specific people. He wants us to love those that He puts on our hearts (we need to be led by His Holy Spirit!). And as we love them, our hearts will continue to grow and our ability to love and reach out will also grow far beyond we could ever imagine (15 years ago I had zero connection or compassion for orphans or for Koreans… now look where I am!).

Jesus didn’t go heal everyone around Him. He didn’t stress out about all the lost people and frantically try and love everyone. He was simply led by the Spirit. The Spirit led Him to His disciples. The Spirit led Him to Zacchaeus. The Spirit led Him to specific towns and places. And God’s love worked powerfully through Him!

Ask for more of God’s love and ask for the Holy Spirit to guide you. The more you walk with God the more you will experience and share His love, soon to people you previously couldn’t relate to in any way. And you will see these people how God sees them: invaluable and worthy of any cost, even the sacrifice of God’s only son Jesus. We are all priceless in His sight!

 

By the way, I thought the Martian was decent. Not great or a must see, just decent. =)