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Every Minute

A few weeks ago I saw a news story noting that the estimated world population is now over 7 billion. It’s an almost unfathomable number — it’s hard enough to wrap one’s mind around a million, let alone seven times a thousand times millions. And to think about it even further, 7 billion people with an average life span of 62.7 years are going to collectively live 434 billion years, or over 230 quadrillion minutes.

Our world is moving at a rapid pace — quite literally. Even if you are sitting perfectly still, in a minute our planet will have traveled over 69,000 miles through space. We’d all be motion sick if God had designed the laws of physics a bit differently! But even here on earth, within that minute there have been 5 earthquakes, 360 lightening strikes, and 3.3 billion gallons of water emptied into the Amazon River.

On the internet, data can theoretically travel at the speed of light — fast enough to circle the globe 450 times in a minute. On Facebook, 800 million users —  more than the population of Europe — upload 148,849 photos and post over 510,404 comments every single minute. On YouTube, over 48 hours of video are uploaded in the average minute. And at the same time, there will be over 98,000 tweets on Twitter and 694,445 searches on Google. Not to mention all the e-mails (many of which seem to end up in my spam folder…)

The world is getting more crowded as 250 babies are born each minute… but 113 of them will be born into poverty. There will also be 107 deaths in a minute — 10 malnourished children, 3 others from HIV/AIDS. And because over 4.5 billion people in the world do not know Jesus, many of those who die in this minute will enter a God-less eternity.

Numbers help us understand the larger world around us, even though sometimes they are so big or abstract that we cannot get our minds around them. Yet God can, and does, every single minute of every single day. Not only does He know 7 billion or so names, but He also knows the hearts they represent. He sees the lives destroyed by sin, the reflections of His image bent and twisted beyond recognition. But the Father also longs to transform them into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

When I was a kid, I’d often hear people talk about being “called into mission.” Guess what? The Bible is fairly clear that if you believe in Jesus, and you have still have a pulse, then you’re called into missions — every minute, every day. And it’s great to have a heart for your community or nation, but the reality is that we live in one of the most evangelized countries in history with only 5% of the world’s population — and there are over a billion people who haven’t even heard of Jesus. “But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?” (Romans 10:14-5)

My point isn’t to say “drop everything and go” — that’s God’s job! Rather, I’m challenged to think about how few and precious our moments are here on earth — and the urgency of the spiritual situation that numbers can only begin to describe. (And if you’re looking for an opportunity, why not become an online missionary?)

Within GMO, we have a proven capacity to reach over 1,000,000 a day with the gospel — or 694 a minute. Consider the words of the Lord in Habbakuk 1:5: “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” And it’s happening every minute, every day!

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