Do for One

Overwhelmed and fed-up puppy

In the Peace Corps, there are a lot of opportunities to help those in need.  Most of the time I do nothing but feel overwhelmed by how many things I could be doing to help impact my community. In my last entry I wrote about “holy discontent,” and how it can move us to take meaningful action if we allow it to.  But most of the time I’m paralyzed to inaction because my heart breaks for too many things. 

The word “overwhelm” derives from the Old English root word “whelm,” which means to engulf or submerge.  To overwhelm, according to the omniscient Oxford dictionary, means “to submerge beneath a huge mass.”  How often can we identify with a sunken ship, too overwhelmed by the ocean’s magnitude to do anything but barely stir in the muck?

I’m challenged this week to “do for one what I wish I could do for many,” as Pastor Dan Nold claims God would want us to do.  I’ll pet one dog in my village (one who doesn’t bite, hopefully) and maybe ask its owner if I can take it for a walk or give it a bath.  I’ll tutor two girls for free who can’t afford to get help with English because they deserve it.   I’ll spend time with someone who is lonely. 

So many people say they don’t want to do anything about one problem because there are just so many that solving one won’t make a difference.  But I doubt that the one or two people who are on the receiving end of that one problem we do decide to invest ourselves in would see it that way.  

The one puppy I decided to adopt

Pressing through feeling overwhelmed and focusing on smaller changes will prevent me from feeling underwhelmed, which I am doubly afraid of feeling.  Strangely enough the dictionary claims that “to underwhelm” means “to fail to impress or make a positive imact on,” without any mention of flooding or defeat.  Its what happens when we don’t allow our holy discontent to move us to action.  

Mother Theresa said that it’s not about what you do, but about how much love you put into doing it. Imagine how much more powerful it would be to focus on doing less but loving more, instead of on doing more but loving less.  If we saturate everything we do in love, no matter how small it is, we’ll have a greater impact.

We can never know how powerful a plant God will grow from the one seed that we give to Him, or who He will send to help us to water it along the way.  But, as Pastor Dan says, “don’t miss your one because you’re so overwhelmed by the many.”

Weekly grape:  Am I missing the one because I’m so overwhelmed by the many?