| The Battle Lines: Two Lessons from the Haiti Tragedy |
15 January 2010 |
I was doing some research about the tragedy in Haiti and facing the inevitable questions: What caused the earthquake that killed thousands? Did God do it as judgment on a people? Did Satan do it to spread misery? Did it simply "happen" as part of the ongoing byproduct of a world broken by original sin?
And then big question: Should those questions matter in the immediate aftermath of such tragedy? Sure, there's a time and a place to understand and address the deeper causes of tragedies in life. But a 25-year-old mother of three who just saw her world literally crumble around her wants water, not blame. Healing her broken bones will open the door to healing her broken spirit.
All mission work requires a strategy the delivers truth to open hearts. It does little good to bark at a closed door. So that's our challenge -- to spread light, to be Jesus, to love God and love others, and then, and this is the hard part for me, to leave the results to God so that He only gets the glory.
My research landed me on the Washington Post's web site, where I was struck by two very different video interviews in the paper's "Divine Impulses" series. The first is with Jars of Clay, and it talks about our response as believers to tragedies like the one in Haiti. The other is with humanist Greg Epstein, and he sings glowingly about the progress of non-belief. So his interview reminds me of the ever-growing deep, deep spiritual need for Jesus in a changing world. And the other reminds me that my first response, whether having coffee with a humanist or reacting to an earthquake, is to love.
Here's the link ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/01/14/VI2010011403589.html
-Stephen Caldwell, Lightbearers Advisory Group Member
