Stats

Sometimes I hate statistics. They can be quoted and to some may cause a lightbulb moment, but to others that same stat may mean nothing.
They can be manipulated and changed to draw two completely different conclusions.
They sometimes drive me crazy. And I think what I hate most about statistics is that we no longer have names and faces when we use them.
I'm currently reading The Hole in our Gospel and soaking it all up. Richard Stearns has a whole section on his love/hate relationship with stats. He says,
Human beings, when enabled to depersonalize a large group of people, respond to them with far less compassion.

True? I think so. He also says,

26,575 children die each day of largely preventable causes related to their poverty. But that very statistic, so critical to our understanding of the extent and urgency of the plight of the world's children, also begins to obscure the humanity, the dignity, and the worth of each of those children. It takes away their names and their stories, homogenizes their personalities, and cheapens the value of each individual child, created in the very image of God....the story of one child [is] more compelling than the suffering of millions.

I tend to believe this is true. If I were on here crying out to all of my blog readers for help with my suffering child. If I was begging for help to save the life of AYLA, I have a feeling I would be knocked over by the response I would receive.
And I would do the same for someone I love. Someone I have a relationship with.

But when I say that 4500 children died today from lack of clean water, it is so easy to graze over. It's a number. A statistic. Ayla did not die today. 4500 children died. HUGE difference, right?

I'm just thinking out loud here. Trying to figure out how to make that number mean something. Because those children don't deserve any less help than my children. They don't.

All that to say that I agree with Richard Stearns. I'm not sure of the effectiveness of statistics. Josef Stalin said "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic."
How do we change that?
I don't have an answer. But it's been bugging me lately. And I needed to get it out there.
I'm beginning to shy away from statistics. Because when I focus on those numbers, it seems overwhelming. And pretty soon, it's just number. No names. No faces. No families left behind. Just numbers. And that is scary.
Stearns says we should plead with God daily as Bob Pierce did, for our hearts to "be broken by the things that break the heart of God".

Those numbers break the heart of God. 4500 of his very own children. He knows their names. He loves them. And they are dying. We are His plan. So that is my prayer today...that my heart will by broken by the things that break the heart of God.