Do you remember Al Gore's movie in the mid-90s called "An Inconvenient Truth?" It declared the scientific reality of global warming and predicted that before now, the polar caps would be gone, the seas would have risen dramatically, the Polar Bears would be toast - all because of a truth regarding the man-made rise in global temperature was a truth we found inconvenient to our lifestyles and refused to listen to his sage wisdom. Not!
The temperature has not increased at all this century (2000 - 2015), the team of scientists who went in 2013 to see how thin the artic ice had beome became stuck in the ice. The ice-breaking ship sent to rescue them got stuck too. It took another ship, this one from Russia, to rescue them from the grip of an unpresedented amount of ice. Jersey Shore is still there along with all our coastlands. And the Polar Bears have not disappeared or even diminished in population. Sorry Al, but your inconvenient truth is unconvincing in light of reality compared to your computer models based on speculation (this speculation is still regarded as "settled scientific fact"???).
Despite Al's completely unfounded but shamelessly overfunded inconvenient untruth notwithstanding, there is an inconvenient truth that we need to do something about. And, unlike global climate change that has been going on since the dawn of time, which we can do little to nothing about, this inconvenient truth is well within our ability to effect real change. The inconvenienet truth, which the Bible reveals from beginning to end is that evil abounds, causing pain and suffering that you and I can mitigate. We can actually and factually make a difference.
We are our "brother's keeper" (Gen 4:9). Our neighbor is the one who is "beaten and left for dead" (Lk 10:29-37). Second only to our devotion to God, we are to "love our neighbor as we love oursleves" (Lk 10:17). The Inconvenient Truth is that God wills that we allow ourselves to be inconvenienced by the need of others whether family or friend or unfamiliar. As Paul plainly says in Galatians 6:10, "As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."
The Inconvenient Truth has little to nothing to do with global anything. It has primarily to do with what and whom comes across your path or your path crosses. It would be inconvenient to take a beggar on the street to lunch in order to hear their story and tell them His story. It would be inconvenient and perhaps risky to call 911 and then yell at someone attacking another. It would be inconvenient to take pictures of a broken up sidewalk in front of a wheelchair bound resident's house, and take it to city hall.
Helping those at risk in our society is inconvenient and sometimes risky. But The Inconvenient Truth of God's love is that it reaches out to all and that He intends to reach out through all of us. As followers of Jesus, we must allow our days to be interrupted by the needs of others. We need to allow for unplanned events in our busy schedules to be available for divine appointment and encounters with God. Jesus' entire life was an inconvenience he freely embraced for us. How can we not allow ourselves to be inconvenienced for those He loves? Jus' Ask'n.
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