When There is More Time

Read Psalm 33

Maybe when there is more time, God will explain some things to me.

Such as:

why didn't God keep the deeps stored up in the storehouses off Sumatra a couple of weeks ago . . . or at least, taken the raging waters of the tsunami and bottled them up and put them on the shelves in heaven?

why is it that some folks in the city where I live have contritbuted nearly $1,000,000 for the inaugural festivities of President Bush, but there have not been similar contributions to the relief efforts for our sisters and brothers in the Indian Ocean region?

why is it - natural disaster, health care, wages, public transportation, decent and affordable housing, it doesn't matter what - why is it that the poor, who have nothing to begin with, have even that taken away from them in such moments?

why is it that the people of the world, especially in the developed nations, become so shocked (justifiably by the 150,000+ deaths caused by the tsunami, and give generously and insist that whatever is needed for food, water, and rebuilding is dispatched quickly, yet fail to notice the reality that 133,000 children die of hunger every week, and we do nothing about it?

Maybe, in eternity, God will sort all this out for me.

But for now, all I can do is wait, and hope, and trust that God's steadfast love is not only on the one who asks these questions, but especially on those who live these questions.

Prayer: There are no easy questions these days, Listening God, and answers are in short supply. Yet we struggle to trust that our questions are in your heart, and that the answers might even be in ours. In the name of your Son, who suffers with each and every one of us. Amen.

(c) 2005 Thom M. Shuman