If you asked 100 people what philanthropy or humanitarianism was all about, my bet is that almost all of them would very quickly begin to talk about circumstances. 

Some might talk about education and healthcare - others about poverty, disease, deforestation, or hunger.  Many would begin to describe the conditions in the “inner city” or Haiti or Africa.  Perhaps a few would talk about solutions or their experience in reaching a need or touching a life.  In the end, most, if not all, would in some way talk about circumstances.  And, in many ways, they would be right.

“Circumstance - which moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and whose decrees are final and must be obeyed by all - and will be”

                                               Mark Twain

Billions of people on this planet live in frankly horrific circumstances.  In my own life I encounter abused children, homeless drug addicts who are often mentally ill, poor day laborers, racially disenfranchised gang members who have been raised on violence, gravely thirsty Sudanese with little hope of water, and the list goes on.  When I wrote this book I spent a year basically engaging with population after population who existed in circumstances so foreign to me that at times it was overwhelming. 

And yet, through all of this, something began to show up.  People.  Persons.  Faces.  Names.  Souls.

Every circumstance impacts a people group that is made up of persons who, according to the Bible, were created in the image of God and are known by Him.  Every circumstance impacts a potential adoptee of God -- one of the “whosoever” – that Christ died for.  Every circumstance impacts millions if not billions of eternal souls. The reality of humanitarianism is that at its root – it deals with the human – and at its root – is a soul that cries out for redemption.  Humanitarianism at its best acknowledges circumstance and then defies it by focusing on people….people who need the Lord as one man put it.

Because, after all, today is Good Friday, let me put it this way:  For every person in every circumstance we must always remember that IT’S FRIDAY BUT SUNDAY’S COMING (thanks Mr. Campolo).