The world is bigger than your backyard.

Today I had an interesting discussion about travel. Not the fun of it, but the education of it. For Americans on a whole, the whole world revolves, well, around us. Living here we experience so many different cultures, and have so many influences that often we forget America is not the world. Traveling shows the vastness of the world, and the differences between cultures. How something that so normal in American can be so abnormal somewhere else and vice versa. When I visited Korea a couple years ago, I was shell-shocked to see men walking in the streets holding hand, and laughing. Men being intimate and close is a very normal part of their culture. If that happened here people would immediately assume they were gay. When I came back home I found it a little sad that men here did not enjoy that same kind of friendship. What’s my point? We get so comfortable with our own point of view we forget that there are others out there. America is not the world, neither is China, or India or any other place on its own. The world is vast, filled with lessons to learn. That’s how God created it. He intended for us to explore, learn, and grow. Step outside of your box, realize the world is bigger than your backyard.

“He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15).

So what am I thankful for today? A boarder perspective.