Some days, I find myself wondering why God lets such suffering happen. Why people starve, and die alone and scared in parts of the world whose name I can’t pronounce, and even in those places not to far from home. But suddenly, with a simple phrase, I came to realize that God isn’t letting such suffering happen, we are. The phrase that came to me was so simple, and yet struck me extremely profoundly: God determines the situation, we determine the circumstance. I’ve heard speaking and preaching on this subject before, but never before was it so clear. God blesses some with little so that those of us who He blesses with much can share with them. What could be more blessing to someone starving than to receive help, and be brought out of starvation? What could be more of a blessing to someone who is sick than to be cured? God wants us to help each other; He created us to have a relationship with Him. Our wonderful, all powerful God who could have done anything He wanted created us and blessed us with free will so that we could be more than mere playthings, but instead so that we could seek Him. Since every man, woman, and child is created in his likeness, helping each other is building our relationship with Him. By helping others who are in need, we are providing our God with pleasure even though we may not even know it. He loves to see us acting in a way that honors Him and shows our devotion to Him. I love to see people helping each other; I love to help other people. Making another person life even a little better is more pleasurable to me than all the “things” in creation that I could have. This supreme pleasure is what makes me believe God loves to see us help one another. I cannot attribute the indescribable, overwhelming feeling of joy in my heart to anything else.
And yet, people still suffer, not because God hates them, or that God does not exist, but in fact through a lack of action on our part. We who have and want not are too comfortable with our live. We give a little here, we give a little there, but we never give our all. We are too afraid to leave the comfort of our “things”. I am not, and would never claim to be any different. I am far too comfortable with my life; I’ve grown far too much into the life I lead. Nor am I going to be pretentious enough to say I have an answer, that I have a solution for the problem. My only suggestion is that we let God into our hearts, minds, and bodies and let Him work through us. We let him use us to provide for those who need food, shelter, clothing; the list goes on and on.
In other words, God creates people and places them in various levels of need and it is our job as children and servants of the Lord to decide whether they stay there or we bring them up.
Like I said, I don’t have any ideas of any kind, this was just on my heart last night and I felt like sharing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ron:
ReplyDeleteRyan, I very much agree with the statement you have made in this note. I am reading a book called The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, and so far, the message of his book have addressed the very thing you wrote about in this note. We are the hands and feet of Christ, and as He lives inside each of us, it our responsibility to love others... See more as He would. One thing I read today that just struck me was that he wrote many of us (myself included, definitely) do not live a lifestyle that is different from the world. I'm not just talking about not watching certain shows, not smoking, not drinking; but I am talking about our inability to show God's true love to others. I think you should pick up Claiborne's book; I think you would like it.