Dear God: Why?

September 14, 2012 By
Our Sponsored Child, Samuel. He’s Almost Twelve Years Old. Rwanda. 

Dear God,
Please help me to understand about hungry children. Yes, I know this world You created for us is broken. We broke it. I get that. And I know that You are the God of justice as surely as You are the God of mercy. 

But it’s hard to watch the little ones suffer. Whatever wrongs and evils–corruption, greed, racism, You name it–have led to the current conditions, I am convinced that no four-year-old is to blame. It makes me a little crazy sometimes. I want to solve the problem, everywhere, everyone, once and for all.

If I were You, I could do that. 

And if I were You, I would understand why it hasn’t been done. 

So okay, God, I trust You. Your ways are better than my ways.

Meanwhile, thank You for our Compassion child, Samuel. Thank You for Compassion International, and their focus on breaking the cycle of poverty by caring for children. Thank You for fewer people living in absolute poverty today than did 30 years ago.

Love, Sheila

I study the poverty numbers, and I see two things.

First, The reduction of people living in extreme poverty tells me that programs like those offered by Compassion International are working. In 1990, 43.1% of the developing world lived in absolute poverty. In 2008, 22.4% lived at that precarious level of subsistence.
 

Second, nearly 1.3 billion people still live in abject poverty in the developing world–before we count the poor in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. Nearly 1.3 billion hungry bellies is too many. 
I can’t help them all. Neither can you, I reckon. But we can pray for them all. 
And Rich and I are helping Samuel. We’re helping one. 
Can you help one? Will you join us in prayer for them all? 
The Lord has made everything for its own purpose,
Even the wicked for the day of evil.
Proverbs 16:4 (NASB)
Filed Under: child, Compassion International, evil, God's omnipotence, poverty, prayer, Proverbs 16, service, thanksgiving