Out of the Zone

I don’t understand God. When I think I begin to understand Him something like Haiti happens. While others suffer and die in situations beyond my imagining, I am surrounding by signs of His blessings in my life and trying to decide whether to wear Black and Gold today.
There isn’t any comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my confusion. Some of the things I have heard this week rank among the dumbest statements of all time. Try this one, “Well, that’s the best place for something like this to happen, because those people don’t have anything anyway, so this doesn’t really change much.” That from a Christian. Or the reminder from a prominent Christian that Haiti was dedicated to Satan years ago and has been suffering ever since. The truth of that aside, how about a sense of timing? Or the worry about the handful of Americans there? As if their inconvience is of a higher order than the suffering of some, not American, laying in a pile of rubble for days. Or the political infighting about how fast we are responding?
Of course, there are positive responses of great concern and generosity. Already there is a problem with people tryng to get there to help and just making matters worse. “Whom shall I send?” Our ineptitude at assisting adds to the frustration and confusion.
Yes, great tragedies yield confusion not just in action but in thought. In the back, or sometimes in the front, of our minds are thoughts about our God. Where is He in this? Our concepts of who He is are challenged just as our concepts of who we are get shaken. Today, OC tells us: “The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says. To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered. ” Haiti can be a reminder how far we are from the “zone” of God. I know He is real and alive and active in the lives of men. Bur right now the death, suffering and stupidity yells too loud and reminds me I’m not nearly as much in the zone of God as I would like to be.
Today while the suffering goes on, more of us will think about the Saints than will pray about the suffering. What that says about us isn’t great.
God drag us into your zone that we will not just be blessed, but understand the our blessings and their suffering.
Today, pray for Haiti and for us.
Be blessed.
Nick