Want to Make a Difference? Get Off Your Butt!

We live in an age of ribbons and hashtags. It seems that no matter where we turn, we are confronted by ribbons on cars, social media profile pictures awash in different colors for varied causes, and hashtags urging you to save everything from the whales to the planet to your favorite vegetable.

But isn’t it time we paused to ask what these things actually do? For example, the now iconic pink ribbon is synonymous with breast cancer awareness. We plop it on our Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds and perhaps even grab a magnetic version for our cars. But what does posting that ribbon actually do? The easy answer is that the act of sharing a picture raises awareness of the issue among your friends, family and the wider connected world. The dictionary defines awareness as having knowledge of or being consciousness of something.

As Christians we are called not just to be aware of a problem but to use the knowledge that awareness brings to be a part of the solution. In other words, we need to take concrete actions to address the problem that we’re highlighting.

Here’s another way to look at it. Just imagine that you are back in Biblical times. You are a leper approaching Jesus in faith hoping for relief from the disease that plagues you and has made you a social outcast. Can you picture Jesus reaching out to reassure you by saying, “My child, I’m aware of your problem,” and then walking away without curing you?

Of course not, you might say, Jesus would never be so uncaring! He would do something to help.

It seems ridiculous in that context, but all too often, our very human actions stop at the level of awareness and never progress to action. Let’s face it, it’s easy to slap a ribbon on your wall; all it requires is hitting a share button. It takes real effort to do more. Sometimes doing more is easy. If you’ve purchased a pink ribbon for your car, hopefully those dollars went to fund tangible benefits for patients and survivors or to support research for a cure. Sometimes taking action is far more demanding, such as volunteering your time to work in the uncomfortable environment of a homeless shelter or taking a public stand – and getting the resulting ridicule - against any of a myriad of evils that our culture tells us are acceptable.

Our society today is driven by appearance. As long as you say the right things or share the right things, people assume that you are a good person. Oftentimes, folks don’t care what you actually do, just what you say. So the next time you go to post a selfie brandishing a Red X or a purple unicorn or whatever the next symbol of mass moral outrage is, take a moment instead to actually take an action.

• Help at a homeless shelter.
• Feed the hungry at a soup kitchen.
• Mentor a child.
• Call an elected official.
• Write an email to a corporation.
• Make a monetary donation to a good cause.

Awareness without action rings hollow. You can make a difference; just take a moment to actually do it instead of merely talking about it.