Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Somebody Else's Problem

What if a spaceship landed in the middle of a soccer match and no one noticed?

I love this scenario from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series written by the late, brilliant Douglas Adams. The spaceship uses a cloaking device called Somebody Else's Problem. Because it looks like Somebody Else's Problem, the spaceship can land on the soccer field while the players continue around it and the spectators ignore it.

In my last Seven-Day Practical Faith blog entry, "It's a Great, Great, Great, Big World," my premise was that the world is too big for us and we can't care about every problem, so we have to select from the problems that God puts in front of us. But today, I want to describe how we need to actually see those problems and not treat them like they are Somebody Else's Problems.

I was guilty of this attitude many years ago during a business trip to Washington D.C. I arrived at 11 p.m. before an 8 a.m. meeting, so I was antsy to secure a rental car and hasten to my hotel and my bed. I was hustling through the rental car facility, trying to beat everybody else from the shuttle bus so I could claim my car first.

I passed by a man sprawled across a large number of bags, eyes closed. You see a lot of weird things in airports; I barely noticed him but figured he was sleeping during a layover. However, after winning my rental car race, I passed back by and saw that paramedics were attending him.

Feeling guilty, I realized that I was the priest in this modern Good Samaritan story, tending to his own business and not stopping to help. Probably one of the travelers I was "racing" had been the Good Samaritan. I suppose when I saw him lying there, I figured that the scene was Somebody Else's Problem.

On the other hand, years later, I was stewing while sitting in my adult Sunday School class. Unhappy because my church had no programming for my two college-aged sons, I was thinking (for the fourth week in a row) that SOMEbody should do something about this programming gap. Then the Holy Spirit seemed to grab me by my lapels and say, "Don't you see? YOU are the one to do this. You know everyone in that age group from your youth ministry work. You have the gift of teaching. This is YOUR problem to solve." I wasted no time and set about creating a young adult ministry.

When is it our turn? When do we stop and help? We'll never know if we keep treating the problem in front of us as Somebody Else's Problem.

I have something for you. It's a free gift entitled "Collections, Volume 1," a 31-piece compilation of popular devotions and essays I've posted over the last five years. I'll email it to you when you register for my two free monthly newsletters, "Backstage Pass" and "Monthly Connections." Simply visit CecilTaylorMinistries.com and provide your email address via the pop-up window or the orange box at the bottom of the home page.