I Think Matthew West Got It Wrong

There's a child
Been abandoned out on the street
Now she's waiting for someone to be her miracle

There's a wife
Somewhere halfway around the world
Begging God for a little girl she can call her own

Well, worlds collide
And colors fade
And a man and wife
Brought their little girl home today

And there’s one less
One less
One less broken heart in the world tonight
Yeah, there’s one less
One less
There’s one less broken heart in the world tonight

For those of you who are not familiar with them, the words above comprise the first verse and chorus of the song One Less by contemporary Christian singer Matthew West.  I share them with you here because as much as we love this song in our house (Jolene even calls it “our” song), I think there is something definitively wrong with it.  The chorus is just, well, wrong.  No offense meant to Mr. West, I love his music and the explanation he has published in relation to writing this song , but his numbers are all off.  

How so?  What do I mean?  Well, what I mean is that when a child is adopted into a family “one less broken heart” doesn’t cut it.  That number is just too small.  Just ask the woman going through the motions at Christmas while her adoptive child spends the same day in an orphanage across the world.  Ask the man who was told after months of waiting that a prospective birthmother has chosen him to be a father.  Ask the couple racing to the hospital to meet their newborn child after months of waiting for a referral.  The to-be parents with travel approval in hand boarding a plane to bring their child home from a foreign country.  The excited brother or sister praying for a sibling they have only seen in pictures.  You see, I understand the sentiment of the waiting child’s broken heart being healed by uniting with a family, but there is so much more healing that goes on when an adoption comes to fruition.  Adoption fills far more than one void – it completes a set, a collection of hearts that were meant to be together from the beginning.   Not just one heart, but many.

And let’s consider the second verse…

We are called
To the widows and the orphans
But it's easy to ignore their silent cries
Oh, but every single time
Somebody reaches into the darkness
Makes a choice to help the helpless
They let mercy save a life

And there's one less
One less
One less broken heart in the world tonight
Yeah, there's one less
One less
Yeah, there's one less broken heart in the world tonight

Again, just one?  Have you ever done this?  Have you ever reached out to an orphan?   To a widow?   To the helpless in any situation?  Can you truly say that when you did you walked away unchanged?  Were you able to serve, consciously or not, as the hands and feet of God and not feel some sort of impact on yourself?  Do our philanthropic actions really just “save a life”?  Or do they perhaps save more than that?  Do they in reality save our lives too?  I don’t mean saved as in salvation and redemption of a soul, but when we act as God has ordained for us to do aren’t we saved just a bit from our own selfish ways?  Drawn a little more out of our own private world and grown into better examples of Christ and who He dreams for us to be?  God created us to love and be loved.   1 John 4:7 tells us, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. “  

Scripture reminds us that “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.” (Psalm 68:5)  But it also calls us to act.  James 1:27 specifically states, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  Do you think that that world might just be the selfish, self-oriented, me-first message that we are bombarded with on a daily basis?  The impious mindset that views God’s will as outdated or unnecessary?  That sees God as a kill-joy that wants to keep people from having fun?  Perhaps the same world that looks upon adopting as crazy or orphans as undesirable?   Well, one of my longtime favorite verses might just be the answer to that criticism as 2 Corinthians 5:13 reads, “If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God.”  

Now, I am not trying to say we all need to run out and adopt all the orphans in the world.  That would be great, but it obviously is not realistic.  Not everyone is called to adopt.  And not everyone should be.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12: 4-6 “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”  God does not expect us all to be the feet, or all to be the hands, or all to be the eyes of Christ for just as the body needs all its parts so does He.  But He does call us each to do something.  There is no pass for those who just don’t feel orphans are their “thing”.   And He is so serious about this expectation that He himself set the prime example when He adopted YOU!  And I guarantee there was one less broken heart in the world that day.

Well the truth is we are all the orphans
But love has left the 99 just to find the one

So let worlds collide
Colors fade
Let your life
Be the miracle today

Well, perhaps, Matthew West wouldn’t approve, I don’t know, but in our household we sing the chorus of this song like this…  “There’s one less, two less, three less broken hearts in the world tonight…” because we understand that widows and orphans are not single, solitary beings in the universe.  They are part of our family and any time you reach out to one or two or three of them, you are healed a little bit too.  Even if you didn’t even know you needed it.

One less
One less
One less broken heart in the world tonight
Tonight I know there's one less
One less
One less broken heart in the world tonight

One less night alone
One less child without a home
One less birthday gone forgotten
One more soul rising from the bottom

ONE less
TWO less
THREE less broken hearts in the world tonight

"In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us inn the One He loves."  Ephesians 1:4b-6