When God is All You Have...

A beautiful reflection from A Concord Pastor today:

A snip

Just a few minutes ago, I saw video of hundreds of Haitians processing through the streets of Port au Prince singing hymns and clapping their hands. The commentator mentioned that all through the night you could hear groups of people throughout the city gathering and singing together...

When God is all you have, you do not let go of your faith...

The faithful Haitian people are human beings. This week we've seen them bleed and die; we've heard their cries of anguish, their weeping over the loss of loved ones; we've seen them beg for something to eat, something to drink, for a place to go... but they know in Jesus a God who chose to suffer with his people and they believe their God is with them...

When God is all you have, you do not let go of your faith...

Don't for a moment think that I'm trying to "spiritualize" the plight of Haitians this week. Their loss and pain are real, as real as their faith in God -and conversely- their faith in God is real, as real as their loss and pain.

If anything, we may be the ones in need of a deeper spirituality in the face of this tragedy.

True. I keep thinking to myself, "What if this happened here?" Would our churches fill much as they did on Sept 12, 2001 the day after that horrifying day. Would we be able to awake to the possibility that God needs us and loves us and quite often we are too blind to notice until something terrible happens?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying this quake or any future natural or man-made disaster is an intentional wake up call from God. But perhaps, it might serve as a wake up call to us who often forget about faith and who languish in the security of the United States. Other people need us and our gifts and often we are too busy with our own mundane affairs to care.

Can we be the overflowing gift to Haiti with our own excess? I think we can. We simply have to want to become what it is that we have received.