I stopped by “Google Hot Trends” this morning to see what is “trending” on the web. Are we bored, what!  #1, #5, #11: “Dancing with the Stars.”  #4: “Who Won Biggest Loser?” #8, #15: “Who Won American Idol?” And #10: “The Hills.”

With the Gulf Coast drowning in an oil slick,  Jamaica bleeding on the streets, North and South Korea in a dangerous standoff, the White House declaring war on Arizona, Ahamdinejad warning President Obama to accept Iran’s nuclear future, and  the Cubs again four games below .500, we’re still obsessed with television fantasy games.

So what will it take to capture America’s attention? Better question: what will it take to capture America’s imagination? When everything significant is completely insignificant, when the popular is meaningless and the hip mere fashion we’re doped and some might say near done… I don’t know.  .  Seriously… The only ones winning these ridiculous contests are the networks… And we’re footing the bill… How stupid and lazy can we be!

But… I choose to take a ray of hope today from my own Hope, my precious 20 year old daughter Elisabeth Hope who is taking two precious weeks of summer vacation from college to work with the Anti-Human Trafficking group, “Not for Sale.” Ellie is part of a team learning and putting into practice “smart activism,” to deal with this insidious and world-pervasive issue.

It’s a matter that matters to God, and therefore must matter to us. NFS is committed to finding ways to snap America out of her reality show addiction to see reality as reality is; and then to do something about it!

In response, my role today is to pray, for Ellie, for the heroes in “Not for Sale,” and for all of us, to wake up and begin to care about something more than so-and-so’s costume malfunction on the finale of blah-badie-blah blah blah. So let’s start a new “hot trend” today – “Not for Sale” rescuing child slaves in Ghana could be the hot search word… And to start that I’ll post this prayer… Pass the word. Let’s set a trend instead of following one… 

“God, stir my heart today with the things that stir you. I am so easily distracted. I am so frequently diverted to pass-times, that steal time and energy and focus from what truly matters. God, help me keep my focus. Let me join, at least in heart and conviction, with those who are in the heat of battle against things you hate and for things you love. I bless today those serving the poor, the broken, the sick, the estranged, the forgotten. Wake me at a heart level to care about these things, to turn my eyes toward, and not away-from the pain in this world! God, I give you access to my emotional center, to share with me what defines your character. In Jesus…”