Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
There are no words to describe what's happening in Haiti: tens of thousands of people swept into eternity without a moment's warning. And now the surviving multitudes are not only bereaving, but going about utterly homeless.
Whether they believe in Vodou, or no god, or in the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Creator/Redeemer, the question haunts everybody: "Why does God [whoever He is] permit such horror?"
The Bible is not helpless in times of disaster such as this. The dead are in God's care; it's the horror now of the survivors that is our heart burden. This disaster is an extenuation of the cataclysm that was Noah's Flood. It was the Flood that originated the earthquakes that our earth suffers. Whatever sinful guilt anyone can say these tragic people had acquired, we must not try to say; we all share it as the human race corporately. The Lamentations of Jeremiah are God's textbook for disaster survivors. The people of Jerusalem had suffered the most horrible defeat and destruction; they lost everything. After lamenting their utter tragedy, the prophet wrote: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. ... Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord" (3:22, 40).
The Flood was a curse to the whole earth from which it has never completely recovered. The earth was mortally wounded; it needs to be completely re-created. That must come when the Lord Jesus returns. The sooner, the better!
That's why those who ponder the teachings of the Bible long for the promised second coming of "the Savior of the world." Whatever days of peace and pleasure are granted to us, let us thank God for them, realizing even our next breath is a gift of His much more abounding grace. Let us give as best we can to send relief to those who suffer; then let us look at everything we have in a new light: nothing we have liked to call "ours" is ours; it is lent us in trust to use for the good of others.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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Daily Bread - Readings about life and the Word of God.
