Remember When We Were the World?

The Fair Park Love is still lingering albeit mostly in my upper respiratory system and in my left quad. Our team still hasn’t fully recovered and we are a good bit away from being 100 percent staffed due to ongoing health concerns.

My sense of time is still off. It’s like I went to bed around Thanksgiving 2023 and woke up in February 2024. Terri and I were talking the other day about still not being over the loss of sweet Delilah, our feline matriarch. It can be difficult to fully process loss during the holidays and start of a new year. Not that it’s ever easy. And in our contemporary culture, we grow attached to our pets as readily as we grow accustomed to the people God has placed in our lives. This probably hasn’t always been the case. After all, it’s hard to focus on much else when you are being hunted by carnivorous dinosaurs and fire-breathing dragons.

For those of you who don’t remember, “We Are the World” was a huge anthem recorded by a large gathering of artists accompanied by a video that reached a massive audience. In those days MTV still played music videos and focused primarily on promoting music.

According to Wikipedia, “We Are the World” is a philanthropic single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World. The song was recorded on January 28, 1985 and officially released on Match 7, 1985.

Talk about time travel..

At the apex of the Cold War, as AIDs exploded across our generation, we had a sense that we could change the world. Not just that we could, but that we needed to do it. While a lot is different about our world today, I’m not sure our generation succeeded in bringing about the change we most wanted to see.

I just spent ten days with people who are marginalized and minimized. In a world of great abundance, we still have people experiencing great lack. We still spend more on war and figuring out new ways to kill each other than we do on advancing peace and learning to love one another. People dig in trash cans searching for sustenance while we print money like it’s going out of style to make war. Something is wrong with this picture. We occupy a world that is distorted—where sin simply begets more sin and death only brings more death.

Apart from Christ returning, I don’t see this harsh reality changing.

”Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.“

John 15:4 (ESV)

Here’s the challenge for us—and it hit hard during our inclement weather event at Fair Park—a place where millions of people gather annually to enjoy the State Fair—we can focus our attention on the darkness or we can look toward the light. Fair Park has taught me deeper meaning of the goodness of God. Inclement Weather Service is a snapshot of what we do on steroids. It’s a place where we pray with predator and pray alike. It’s a place where we see grace and experience mercy often only a few heartbeats apart.

”The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.“
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John 1:5 (ESV)

Do you remember when we were the world and we were determined to change it?

Brothers and sisters—we need Christ. We need Jesus. He is the one who can change the world one heart at a time.

What can we do? Imitate Him. Be generous. Be compassionate. Be kind. Show grace. Have mercy. Stand for justice. Love exceptionally well.

Well—it’s back to the drawing board for me. I recently had some friends ask me to create a piece of original artwork for them. It’s a gift to celebrate an upcoming birthday in May. And Lord knows, May will be here before we know it!

Blessings,

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™