We live in a world where life doesn’t always make sense. A world where humans are sold as slaves, where wars are started over selfish squabbles, where the point of a gun follows a pointed word. We currently have an opioid epidemic, a global pandemic and roughly nine percent of the world living with starvation. Religion gets used as a weapon, things that used to be socially wrong now receive global acceptance and a quarter of all American children are born into single parent homes. It is tempting to think that these are recent developments, but a casual read of any history book will disprove that theory. Life just isn’t fair and it never has been. That doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon.

In the sorrow and sadness of our personal “unfairnesses” and the global realities of others’ unfair life situations, it’s tempting and easy to get discouraged and remain depressed. It’s hard to read or hear the daily news without some new unfairness rearing its head to remind us yet again how tragic and terrible life can be.

And yet, there is cause for hope. There is always cause for hope.

Throughout the course of human history the greatest inflection point of change has tended to come at the greatest point of unfairness. Average people, moved by injustice, poverty, catastrophe and need asked themselves, “How can I make a difference?”, and then acted according to their conscience. It’s almost as if we’re wired to put up with the intolerable until a certain breaking point is reached, and then the cry of need becomes so deafening we’re forced into action.

I’ve started asking myself, “Why wait?”. One of my favorite Bible comments about the life of Jesus was that He went around doing good and healing all that were oppressed. He didn’t wait for a crisis – or ask permission. He saw a need and He met the need. He then taught His disciples to go into all the world and do what they saw Him do.

A great question to start each day with is “How can I do good for someone else today?”. Rather than lamenting the state of the world around us, we – especially those of us with an abundance of resources – have the ability to be proactive with our time, our treasures and our talents. We can be out of the box thinkers, creating solutions for the betterment of the disadvantaged around us or across the oceans. We can choose our cause and craft our solutions. We can even join with those already acting. We can become agents of change to the degree and extent that is in our heart. We can be part of a global team of agents that goes around doing good and healing those who are oppressed.

We live in a “more is better” society but the results overwhelmingly disprove that statement when measured by contentment. Some of the most miserable people live in some of the greatest abundance. In my experience, more is best enjoyed when it is deployed for the betterment of others. This is not to say we’re to abandon providing for our own, or to cease the enjoyment of what we have. It is to say that having seems to work best when giving is part of it, a fact attested to by millions who have used their plenty to alleviate others’ lack.

I’m talking about more than writing a check. I’m talking about investing in people. It is absolutely good and needful to write a check. All charity requires funding. But, as the slogan says, BE the change you want to see in the world. Problems are only problems until someone finds a solution. It is up to thinking, feeling, caring people to develop and implement those solutions. Every problem has one. Necessity is the mother of invention for a reason, all I’m suggesting is rather than wait for the next problem to reveal itself, go looking for problems to solve before they become crises.

I have friends who teach English to immigrants, a friend who counsels troubled kids who are truant, a friend who gathers canned goods and monthly distributes them to food banks and shelters in DC. My favorite story is a friend near Boston who grew up poor and decided to raise money to buy brand new coats for underprivileged kids. His point was anyone can give a hand out and those families see it as just that and it reaffirms their lack of self-esteem. He wanted them to know they were worth a new coat, not just someone else’s discarded hand me down. That’s the kind of agent I want to be. That friend, by the way, is retired and in his seventies. He thinks of this as his “real” job, not the career he left behind.

If we took the time to be honest with ourselves, and looked at the need around us that bothered us – you know, the one we wondered why anyone hasn’t done something about – and gave serious and heartfelt thought to how WE could be an agent of change in that situation, I know we’d easily come up with multiple ways to address those needs. We can be self-ish or we can be self-less. The choice is really up to us. We can be agents of the status quo or agents of change. One of those two has unimaginable rewards waiting for us like inner peace and greater self-worth. It is and always has been more blessed to give than to receive.

Can we solve all the world’s ills? Of course not, but we can make a difference somewhere, even in just one life. And change begets change. When we succor those who are in need and help lift them out of their present troubles, it has a follow-on effect. Those who have been comforted, can in turn comfort others. We’ve all read stories of those who have escaped poverty, drugs, abuse and torment and then later in life were able to reach out to others in similar need. Those people always point back to the time when someone unknown reached out them in their despair. Sometimes – most times – we will never know the impact something like a brand new coat can have. To us it’s a $30 coat. To them it’s being seen and valued, which can have lifelong impact. Let’s be the agents of the changes we want to see in the world. Let’s start today. Somebody, somewhere needs what we can bring to their table. Let’s not wait for the crisis to come to us, let’s head it off at the pass so it never gets to crisis proportions.