Repentance and relief...

I find it is not very often that Canadians return to the Lord, crying in repentance of the sins that they have committed and the abominations that they have created. I know I'm also one of those; the staggering amount of apathy and indifference that I hold towards personal and corporate sin is flabbergasting.
However, for the past three days, I have been wrestling with corporate sin so deeply infiltrated into our lives, I'm currently emotionally spent. Crying for forgiveness for the church, for the brokenness of many lives, for the mercy of God to withhold His hand in judgement against us... There are great problems in this, including my own hypocrisy - will this repentance last? Will I, indeed, turn from my wicked ways? and my own powerlessness in changing the world.
The numbers are staggering: 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. Half of the world's population live on less than $2.50 a day. The richest 10% of the world (ahem, us) consume 60% of the resources, while the bottom 10% consume only 0.5% - a 100-fold discrepancy. The world spends $780 billion in the legal arms and weapons trade every year, yet only $6 billion would guarantee every single child on this planet could get a basic education - and this amount is still less than what North American women spend on cosmetics every year. The economic distance between the very poorest and the very richest is ever-widening, making it harder and harder for those on the bottom to ever catch up to those of us at the top.
And yet, the North American church is known more for its embrace of the materialistic culture that dominates society. Sure, we are doing work, on small scales, in varying places, to counteract this overwhelming poverty. But does the North American church uniformly, in word and deed, declare "NO!" to continuing in this unjust manner? We are comfortable in our houses, with our cars, with our multiple changes of clothing, with being adequately fed with overly cheap food, with having flush toilets, but, like the cows of Bashan, I fear, judgement will lay on our heads for not acknowledging the devastatingly poor, and continuing in our ways that perpetuate oppression of the poor...
Thank God for His mercy! However, mercy without repentance is rather empty, I think. And I look at this computer screen, realizing that the fact that I own a computer, can pay for internet access, have the electricity to run the darn thing, and have adequate shelter in which to safely use my computer places me leagues ahead of the Majority. And how, with the God who Sees, can we start to turn from our ways and follow Him in true devotion and worship...