Last week there was a video on AOL News of a two-year old Chinese girl being run over by two different vans, while at least a dozen people passed by, completely ignoring her flailing, dying form. Eventually someone informed her mom who proceeded to hoist her daughter casually into her arms and take her to the hospital. The little girl was not expected to survive.

This video sparked tremendous outrage in China, where citizens are asking how this could possibly happen in their country. Some wonder if it’s because of an absent Good Samaritan law that protects citizens from lawsuits or expenses if they help a person in need. Others speculate that it has to do with the massive population of China which has prompted a one-child policy, leading to the abortion or abandonment of countless baby girls. In China, girls are worth less than boys.

I do not mean to compare people with animals, but my experience with the three little kittens that I am fostering has provided me with an ample supply of reflections that can be expanded to include life at large. One of these is saturation. It would appear from my tireless pursuit of homes for my little charges (e-mailing, Facebook messaging, texting, and approaching at least 200 people and posting them on Craigslist) that my state and probably the entire Union has been saturated with cats. People feel bad, but they’re just not interested in one more feline. Besides, if they really want a kitten they can go to the nearest pet shop or shelter to pick one out that has the exact coloring, fur-length, eye color, gender, personality, and size that they want.  Why bother to adopt a bland stray from who-knows-where?

And so it is with our world. People have become so consumed with themselves that rather than focusing on the one more good deed they could do, they focus on all they have done and how much it has cost them.  Love is tireless and sacrificial; when I list all the good works I have done for those around me I am doing it to pat myself on the back and to fill myself with the assurance that I am a good person. But then the focus is on me; in the meantime, someone’s life is waning on the street. 

Yes, the need in our world is staggering. No, we will never be able to help them all. Yes, our acts of kindness are mere drops in the bucket. Yes, in our estimation the number individuals in the world is as numerous as grains of sand.  Yet our Great Creator knows the number of grains of sand on our planet and the quantity does not make them any less valuable in His estimation. In fact, perhaps our acts of selflessness matter more to Him because the hopelessness of our cause reveals the genuineness of our hearts.  The world’s population may increase but we still have only One God – do it for Him.