Haiti Day 2
Things can change so quickly. As I drove through Haiti today and saw the massive amount of destruction it’s hard to fathom that all of it happened in about 30 seconds. 30 seconds! But I got some very sobering information today as we drove around and the World Concern staff was telling us about our Sunday agenda. After church tomorrow morning we’re going to “see the really bad part of town.” I’m having a hard time believing that it can get any worse.
Today I interviewed about eight women who survived the quake. Five of them had lost children in the quake. As I finished asking one woman all my questions she ended by simply saying “I am hopeless.” How do you respond to that without being trite and cliché?! I ended up thanking her for her time and told her I would pray for her. How many times do I say “I’ll pray for you” and I quickly throw up a prayer and call it good? Admittedly, far too often.
There’s an older song by Christian artist Steve Camp where part of the chorus asks “Can you taste the salt in the tears they cry?” I thought of that song a lot today. Do I get that involved with all the pain I see in Haiti? To be honest…no. I feel sympathy, I feel sorry for them, I feel somewhat helpless, actually.
But then I catch myself. My life – every penny I make, every experience I have, every blessing I’m given – is a gift from God. I actually own nothing. According to the Parable of the Talents God does have an expectation on what he gives me. He expects a return on the investment. So I can’t say I feel guilty about my life, but I do feel like I need to make sure God is getting a good return on what He’s invested in me.
The balancing act is the line between works and grace. Giving God a return on His investment can’t be driven by a desire to earn God’s approval by what I do, but rather by who I am – a man created by God to reflect his Glory. In order to reflect His Glory I need to allow God to conform me to the image of His Son…who entered into our plight in every way.
Tomorrow I will enter more into a very real plight. May I have the courage to see it, smell it, enter in to it, and in the process allow God to use the experience as yet another deposit into my life…and another chance to allow God to conform me to His image.
