Are we obliged to care for all of the needy? Continue reading
Burma Quake Suffering
Tag Archives: earthquake
Why did God shake the wrong people?
I knew it would happen, I don’t know why I feel so angry about it and want to cry… but I do. As soon as I read about the magnitude 6.8 earthquake in eastern Shan State, Burma last Thursday, I … Continue reading
Please explain
I’m not quite sure where to start, I have things to do, stuff to read, prayers to pray and blog posts to write… Meanwhile Japan is deeply grieving a major catastrophe and fearful of a potential nuclear disaster on top … Continue reading
Aftershock
Such relief to turn off the TV and allow silence to settle upon me after being saturated with news casts of crumpled buildings, dust, distraught survivors, sirens, fires, a toppled cathedral, and bodies in the rubble. I run water, hot … Continue reading
Devastating earthquake
Please pray for the people of Christchurch after a large, shallow earthquake (magnitude 6.3, 5km depth, 10km SE of Christchurch city) struck at 12:51pm today. There is severe damage to buildings, including the cathedral and police have confirmed fatalities. There … Continue reading
The end is not nigh
Tsunamis, snowstorms, earthquakes — is God withdrawing His restraining hand and allowing the earth to be engulfed in chaos? There are a couple of considerations here: God has removed restraint upon people, and the end will be worse than this. … Continue reading
Live in compassionate incompleteness
As I have been turning Proverbs 3:5-6 over in my mind this week and considering the situation in Haiti, it is clear that in this life we must live with incompleteness. Deuteronomy 29:29 shows that we not only have limited capacity for knowledge, but also God has chosen to reveal only certain knowledge to us.
We desire to know all, to probe the deep wisdom and knowledge of God (Romans 11:33-34) thinking that by complete knowledge we will be masters of life (see Genesis 3:6 and Genesis 11:4). While we ask why God caused the earthquake and demand an explanation for why relief is not provided faster, this is really a reaction out of our sinful nature.
There are different ways of questioning God, one is effectively saying, “See if God is love, or even exists at all, this would not have happened.” But God is not obliged to provide answers regardless of what tantrums the godless throw. Others groan with compassion, “O God, why must the poor suffer even more?” This is not unlike the cries of the prophets and psalmists.
Can we live in compassionate incompleteness?
Should we have a turn being poor?
My 8-year-old daughter was watching news footage of the catastrophe in Haiti with me this evening. Afterwards, while eating dinner she commented that it’s not fair that people have to always be poor, in her words, “they should get to be rich and we should have a turn being poor.” I was very proud of her. She did qualify this by stating that, “we should still have clean water and some food to eat, but not much.”
In my heart I was thinking that it wouldn’t be at all nice to be poor, but I am also pleased that she thinks like this. It seems that currently every passing day convicts me on how affluent I am, how desperately poor most of the people in this world are and that God loves the poor.
I would like to give more than I do, but I do have bills to pay and a family to feed – we are struggling to pay our own living costs. There is no easy answer, I cannot bring myself to make my wife and children have less, I need to find ways to spend less myself if I want to give more. I also need to work on becoming a more giving person from the heart, less selfish in other words.
Still, I cannot get Luke 16:19-25 out of my head – what if I have already had my chance?
He raises the poor from the dust
Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth. (Job 21:5 ESV) This should be our response when we look at the suffering in Haiti. Disasters such as the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti can prompt us … Continue reading
