A Billion People ...

Wednesday, June 27, 2012. Munich train station at 7 in the morning. People rushing through the subways and passages. There are so many people in the world, 80 million in Germany, 250 million in Europe, 1 billion in China and India … do we take the pure mass of people into account when we do our decisions?

How to deal with 9 billion? …

Is there any consequence of the number of people in the world? Does it make a diffence if you are surrounded by 10 people or by 1000 or by 10.000? If you look into the life in a bigger town and compare it with the life in a suburb or in some small town in the countryside, you will realize that is does make a difference.

We all live in a community. Of course, there are some of us who are rather alone. Some avoid to socialize. But all of us live with the others. They are part of our concept of life, part of our mind and emotions, part of our days. We cannot think a life which is completely independent of its social environment. We are all linked to some selected special people and then also to the many around us!

Cynic people ever have come to the conclusion that there are so many humans, that a single human does not matter. Dictators have killed thousands. Ignorance is widely spread. If 1 suffers, we might help. It 10 suffer, we reach our limits. If 1000 suffer, we are out and usually some protection mechanisms in our mind start to shield us from the overwhelming danger for our own life, which is coming from them.

Every single one with unbelievable value …

The biblical books tell us that God knows every single person, even every single word and thought of everyone. He is the almighty, who spans the universe. 9 billion are no problem for him. But things are even better.

He cares for everyone. He wants to be in contact with everyone. He wants to save everyone. The right perspective for us is not “many”, but “individual”. He cares for us as individuals. If we read the biblical books, in particular the Old Testament, we hear many life stories of individual people. God wants to be linked to the individual. He is searching for those who take him serious, and then he wants to live with them and be the guiding force and centre of their life.

With the Lord in our life, we do not need to be afraid of the 1 or the 10 or the 1000. We do not need to fear the many, since he can cope with all of them, and with every individual. That is a fantastic perspective on human development: there is hope and there is a future for all of us with the Lord! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts