Dear God
Dear God,
After spending an afternoon in the Hole*, once again, I’m full of pain, confusions and tons of questions.
God, I just don’t get it. WHY?
Why are there so many kids that don’t have enough food to eat?
Why are families living in city dump and using trash to feed their kids and build their homes?
Why is their widespread incest and abuse here?
Why don’t you do something?
Why don’t you make this right?
Why?
your servant,
Pete
*The “hole” is a make shift community where hundreds of Dominican and Haitians live. The property was set aside as a city dump and place for sewage run off. It’s widespread with poverty, disease, and crime.
We are so blessed. I grew up in Haiti and I know what you mean. I ask the same questions. How can we make it all change? It starts with 1.
I have been following your trip, but have been so crazy I have not been able to comment tell now.
To say I feel the pain in your questions is an understatement.
Oh how Christ’s Church needs to continue to be The Church.
After seeing this same scene myself throughout Guatemala and Belize, my heart breaks anew at these pictures. Thank you Pete for your willingness to ask the questions of our God, Who is also heartbroken over these places. We all know this knowledge doesn’t help but it is good that they are asked. I pray daily for all of you there as well as everyone that will still be there after your team leaves.
Why ask why? Do we ever ask why are we so blessed? No we are spoiled. I believe this is the best attitude to have and then just PRAY for all those less fortunate.
when my husband returned from a trip to mongolia he had pictures of the families who lived in the city dump. it was eye opening. i can’t even imagine.
As Gary Haugen from International Justic e Mission says: ‘I used to ask: Where is God?’ But now my plea has changed. I no longer ask ‘Where is God?’ but ‘Where are God’s people?’
I completely understand your confusion and sadness though.
It is certainly okay, understandable, and human to ask “why” in so many horrid situations…but the bottom line, to me, is to reflect again on God’s Son hanging on the cross and ask the same question…though we know (in part) the answer; it helps keep things in line.
Yes, the Cross is an evidence of God’s incredible love for we rebels; but it is, perhaps even more importantly, an evidence of His hatred for sin…all sin, to include those sins that enslave people in poverty and worse…
Remember that you are bragging on Jesus, and that, energized by His Spirit, is changing lives…one heart at a time.
Pete, I’ve been asking the same kind of questions lately. It’s difficult to reconcile the extreme wealth and blessings we have here in America with the pain and poverty that millions experience every day.
@Julia – I’ve heard Gary Haugen speak when he said that. THAT is really the question. IJM is a great organization.
So, Pete what is God asking you to do?
I am so glad Crosspoint and it’s people are there. Perhaps a start fixing and helping with some of those questions. My prayers today are going to be different…
I use to wonder the same thing too.
But I think we should be asking people these questions.
Oprah said that when people ask her why there are so many people are suffering she says “Because we let them.” And she’s right. If more people did something instead of just expecting God to do everything, so many people wouldn’t have to live like this.
I just finished reading SECOND CALLING by Dale Hanson Burke. In it, she tells of visiting Guatemala and approaching what is literally known as THE DUMP, a mountain of waste that includes chemicals, medical refuse from hospitals including used syringes, as well as decaying food and even human waste. But far worse than the mere stench of that place was the horrible discovery that men, women and children CHOOSE to live in that dump! And even when mission organizations gave them clean places to live, the majority of them went BACK to the dump.
Then she added this: “Later I realized how much all of us are like those people. We have learned to love the smell of the dumps in our lives, and we are comfortable living in garbage. We are wallowing in such a cesspool that we cannot see the better life God is offering us.”
Such a powerful and heartbreaking realization, isn’t it?
I think Acts chapter 17 holds at least part of the answer. And then, I like what some earlier replies mentioned… that God is broken hearted as well. John 11:35 – Iesous Dakruo – you want to understand the compassion that Christ had for us and why He left heaven? Stand and look on the conditions in Haiti or many of the other places in the world just like it. Are you not moved to compassion and a desire to act? And those are just temporary aspects of lives that are but flashes of wind blown vapor compared to an eternity that will either be perfectly awesome or an infinity worse.
Peace.
Those questions are perplexing, for sure. I think sometimes we get the answers to our “why” questions on a need to know basis…and sometimes God decides we don’t need to know. But we do need to serve, give, love, share, and spread His word and His love. I do believe that God wants other people to see us serve in the areas of need that we feel passionate about, for different reasons: (1) to meet needs (2)to humble ourselves (3) to represent Christ to onlookers and seekers (4) to offer hope to those in need and who are suffering….and of course that list can keep going almost indefinitely.
I believe everything you all are doing is making a difference.
Ok, you messed me up with the picture of the pig. Its real easy for us to live distant to these problems, but I could not help but to think how I would not allow my kids to go play in a mud pit with all that trash and with a pig (it looks dead, but I am sure it is alive) yet, how many millions of people live that way daily? Yet, its so easy for me to go about my everyday life, unconcerned. Shame on me!
I love what Erwin McManus says in Soul Cravings. Many times we want to get angry with God or blame him, but shouldn’t it be God who is angry and upset with us for what we’ve allowed to happen with what He gave us? When you posted, “Dear God…Why don’t you do something?” – It was almost as if He was asking me, “Why don’t you (referring to me) do something?” – Thank you and your team for doing something this week to make a dent in a huge problem!
Amen to what others have said here. Why, God’s people, do we allow this? And what, in God’s life-giving and transformative Name are we going to do about it?
My experience has been that letting my heart break for and with others is a glimpse of the Divine. To love as Jesus loves is to hurt with those who want for water and shelter and food and so on. Blessings.
Following is a quote from Randy Alcorn’s blog:
Why does God give some of his children more than they need and others less than they need (including the spiritually impoverished, who have never heard the gospel)?
He does it to teach his children to help each other. God distributes wealth unevenly, not because he loves some of his children more than others, but so his children can distribute it to their brothers and sisters on his behalf. And so that we can meet the physical needs of those without Christ, and also bring to them the best news in the universe: that God loves them and Jesus went to the cross to pay the price for their sins, and to purchase for them an eternal future with Him.
Christ doesn’t want us to have too little or too much (Proverbs 30:8-9). When those with too much give to those with too little, two problems are solved. When they don’t, two problems are perpetuated. When we hold on to money God puts in our hands intended to reach the world for Jesus, and help the needy in his name, we always suffer for it.
**(The above is quoted from Randy Alcorn’s blog, http://www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com . I ran across it today and thought is was so fitting for your post)
God did not create the conditions in the DR, anymore than he created the conditions in Darfur or any number of places. Mankind created these conditions. Gods answer to these man made disasters is to inspire the blessed efforts of people like yourself and the wonderful volunteers from Cross Point to go there and make a difference
Despite the earnest hope of some, there is no heaven on earth except in that heaven created by a strong belief and faith in God.
The reality, as I see it, is that this life is about toil. It’s about working hard and earning God’s mercy so that He will admit you to paradise and save you from hellfire.
Each one of us has been tested, whether with wealth or poverty, sickness or health, familiy or lack of it and the list goes on. The reality is life does not end here. There’s a hereafter where each person will be questioned about each and every blessings God gave Him and how he or she used it.
The test for the rich is whether they will realise this wealth is a trust from God and use it to do His work and in helping the poor and always being grateful.
The test for the rich is whether they will be grateful to God and patient despite their circumstances and put all their trust in God that He knows what is best for them and they can always turn to Him for Help. That they have to work to rise above their circumstances and put their trust in Him. They also have to realise this world is not peramanent, that if they keep to His covenant and are obedient to Him, they will be granted such a paradise that they will never remember having gone through any hardship.
Patience. Trust in God. Helping one another. This is what we need. Those are great questions Pete, but I humbly beleive they would be better served if adressed to ourselves and fellow humans especially since God has given us every means (health, wealth, intelligence, support, etc). It’s up to us to use them to work good.
Sorry, I made a typo. It should read the test for the poor (not rich).
“The test for the POOR is whether they will be grateful to God and patient despite their circumstances and put all their trust in God that He knows what is best for them and they can always turn to Him for Help. That they have to work to rise above their circumstances and put their trust in Him. They also have to realise this world is not peramanent, that if they keep to His covenant and are obedient to Him, they will be granted such a paradise that they will never remember having gone through any hardship.”
I ask the same questions. This part of the world, that part of the world, it doesn’t matter. I’m constantly amazed, in a sad way, what people do to others, especially children. Selfish.
I sit here with tears rolling down my face asking the same questions.. My heart breaks for these kids. We are so blessed with everything and we still want more. THANK YOU PETE for having a heart that is troubled by this and for these hurting kids! I am so with you on WHATEVER we need to do to try and make a when bigger difference in this place!! THANK YOU TO the whole team for being Christ with skin on to the kids in “The Hole”.
All the comments have been great. I always learn so much from you guys.
I’ve started several times to write something pithy and theologically profound. But, every time I do, God reminds me of a few things.
Yesterday, you threw away more food, from your refrigerator, the one I generously provided, than it would take to feed several of my children for weeks. Why do you waste my provision?
Just this weekend, you complained about your storage building, the one that is much better than many of the homes others live in. Why is not good enough?
Pete, someone said it earlier. I’ve tried to put a better face on it. I can’t. We’re spoiled. But, God forgive me, I’m going to remember. Not just to change for a mission season but to change my perpective.
Thanks for sharing.
Later on, I’ll learn to spell.
SIN is why.
As bad as physical poverty is, spiritual poverty is worse. We just respond more to obvious physical poverty because it is our worst fear. Says a lot about us I think.
The Word promises abundance for those that love Him. What happened?
I don’t think it is really our place to question these things…it is our job to do what the Holy Spirit tells us to do in regards to responding to them. God has allowed this to occur for His reasons and I know that whatever He does is perfect and right because that is His character. Whatever brings Him the most glory is His desire and should be ours. What brings Him the most glory often involves suffering on our end, so that we recognize and see our complete and total dependence on Him and with this our lives bring Him glory. Jesus said to the apostle Paul that He would show Paul how much he would suffer for the name of Christ. I think we suffer with our reliance on ourselves because we do live in a county with opportunities…but that is wrong, we are to totally rely on God. He is completely sovereign and in control and that is why we trust Him. Job 40-42 is absolutely amazing in reminding us who we are in relation to a holy, mighty, awesome God.
I have felt this very same way at times. We recently had a guy who came to our small group in our home who has, at the age of 24, already endured and seen some horrible things heooeb in his short lifetime. He asked us this same question. It was so hard to attempt to answer his question. We cannot know the mind of God. And we know that His ways are not our ways.
I asked the same question after I walked out of a man’s house whose wall was upholstered in ARMANI leather. Walking around his Olympic sized swimming pool which no one is allowed to use and walking through his car lot with about 20 vehicles there. He bought his 16 year old son a Hummer even when his son is not old enough to get a license here in the Philippines.
It is the growing sense of apathy that makes me ask the Lord “why?”
(pardon the thread jack)
muslimahbloggerer:
You said: “The reality, as I see it, is that this life is about toil. It’s about working hard and earning God’s mercy so that He will admit you to paradise and save you from hellfire.”
Work has always been part of God’s plan. He assigned tasks to Adam even before Adam and Eve sinned. Adam was given the task of naming the animals. And then after Eve was created, she joined with Adam in the task God assigned humankind: caring for the plants and animals, stewarding God’s creation; also themselves multiplying and filling the earth — bearing and raising children.
It was after Adam and Eve sinned that God placed the curse of arduous toil upon humankind — that work would be difficult and taxing. The ground would be far harder to work. The weather would be uncooperative. Childbirth would be highly painful. And raising children would also bring pain to parents — as they went through the heartaches and challenges of their children’s making mistakes and sinning. (Of course, there would be joys along the way. But now life wouldn’t be unalloyed by these challenges. It would be alloyed — mixed with the impurities of sin and its attendant pains and consequences.)
One of the fundamental differences between the true Way (Christianity) and every other religion/spiritual system is that the Way recognizes and is based on this truth: we can do absolutely NOTHING to earn God’s mercy. We are fallen, depraved, and deserving of nothing but His justice for our sin against a good and holy God. Isaiah 64:6 (Amplified) states that “we have all become like one who is unclean [ceremonially, like a leper], and all our righteousness (our best deeds of rightness and justice) is like filthy rags or a polluted garment; we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away [far from God's favor, hurrying us toward destruction].”
I truly believe that indeed Pastor Pete and the others from Cross Point did what they did in the DR as a response to God’s love. Doing good things (“working hard”) doesn’t earn us brownie points with Him. We cannot earn His love. We don’t have the ability to live perfectly. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit living within the Christ-follower that that very Christ-follower even has the desire, will, and ability to do what pleases God in the ways that please Him.
The question we are asked at judgment will be Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God’s one and only Son — fully God and fully human, God made flesh — and that He lived a sinless life, that He died on the cross and was raised to life, and that His sacrifice on the cross substitutes for the debt we owe to God? Those who by faith have accepted Jesus as personal Savior and Lord are the only ones who qualify for admittance into heaven.
Then the believer’s life is examined by God to see what works were done out of faith and love and what works were not. This judgment seat is about rewarding the believer, who already has received the gift of eternal life with God.
sigh.
ive never been able to go on a missions trip. but every time friends come home from one i battle with 2 feelings. guilt and urgency. when i see the photos you posted i immediately feel guilty. but im learning that-that is a selfish response. it puts my eyes on me. so instead, i pray that i will act on the urgency to reach out and make a difference when and where i can. and not as God leads because i think sacrificial service is a given always and He has already asked us to serve others. so thank you for being an inspiration to us all!
thanks for doing your part pete.
This post touched me so deeply, I couldn’t comment at first. I have come back to it several times. I have nothing earth-shattering to share, except to say that I feel blessed to be on the path to changing such an existence for one little girl, far far away in China. And I am grateful to say that I don’t look at my “stuff” the same way I did before I started the journey toward being her mommy. I’m sure the trip to our Gotcha Day will be even more eye-opening and heart-breaking. But then, if I’m to be His hands and His feet, I need to daily ask Him to break my heart, don’t I? Break it and make it His. Thanks for sharing such a poignant perspective in this way.