If we had been strengthening the United Nations in the post-9-11 era, we would be in a position to act immediately. There are several African countries that have offered United Nations peacekeeping troops. Liberia is a great example of where United Nations sponsored troops made a tremendous difference. If we spent one/hundredth of what we have spent in Iraq to train and equip African peacekeeping troops, pressuring Sudan would become infinitely easier.

In the case of Sudan, it isn’t new news. If this administration hadn’t dragged its feet over the last year being preoccupied elsewhere, this could have been prevented.

You had one smart grandpa.

Good to know you haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ll be interested to hear (read) about more of your experiences.

Quiara

So, these questions people have been asking are not ones to be easily settled. I’m not sure we can even answer them, except to do as some have suggested: follow Habakkuk’s pattern and praise God in spite of the things we see, and secondly, to get off our collective rumps and do something about it. God’s call is not just for our money and our prayers. He doesn’t want us just to support a few select people as “our missionaries” he wants US out there being his hands and feet and voice.

When my dad was 11 or 12 he got in the habit of ending his prayers by saying “and help the orphans and widows, amen.” One Saturday morning my grandpa got him up at the crack of dawn. When my dad whined about what they were doing up so early, my grandpa responded “we’re going to help those widows and orphans you keep praying for.”

I will be praying about this and know that God is bigger than my willngness to help or not. But I will also try to remain open to being His answer to my prayer.

I don’t struggle so much with guilt for the ways I’ve been blessed. I’m exceedingly thankful for them. My life hasn’t been a study in simplicity or “peace” in the traditional sense. But for all the scrapes and falls and all times I’d have given up, God has been there for me — even when I wasn’t sure I wanted him around. I just wanted to see more clearly the way God has worked in their lives to bring good from bad because I’ve seen it so well in my own life in so many things.

But I realized my mistake while I was praying about this yesterday and last night. I assume that God hasn’t blessed these people, worked in their lives and that he hasn’t (or won’t?) use even this for his glory. I made God too small.

I know these things will continue just in the same way that I’ll continue to mess up, to sin and to defile the things God makes holy. We’ve all got high-handed sins and they all hurt both us and others — and if God is no respector of persons, I have to believe he’s no respector of sins, either. They’re all missing the mark; they *all* separate us from him.

If God can use my life, my sins and the sins against me for his glory, he can use this. He didn’t cause it and I don’t think he’s apathetic toward it. But he doesn’t stop it any more than he stops me from my sin; I alone am responsible for the ones I hurt. As are they.

It does seem lopsided to me sometimes, but I’m nearsighted in more ways than one.

I wanted to know what your position on instrumental music in worship to God. God Bless your ministry.

Q-I am so with you on that last comment girl!

I often struggle with guilt over the great life I have been given (because I know I still want more)when I see the circumstances of others lives. I also struuggle with understanding Gods silence when horrible things are happening. I think Habakkuk struggled with this too! Before he was rejoicing without a fig, he said this in Chapter 1:12-17

O LORD , are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, we will not die.
O LORD , you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrong.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
You have made men like fish in the sea,
like sea creatures that have no ruler.
The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.
Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?

Sometimes I just feel all I can do is cry out and beg for mercy for those that seem so broken and abused. Afterwards, just waiting in faith when He seems silent and unmoving, believing He is in control… that is the real struggle part of Christianity for me. I’m so glad to know others struggle with that too.

That’s what I can’t figure out. Because God has done amazing things in my life — things that I can’t explain and don’t deserve. But looking at the pictures of these women, knowing what they’ve been through and how much more is yet to come — it’s just hard to reconcile. I’m not any more “deserving” than any of them are, yet my life has been filled with blessings, everyday miracles and otherwise.

We’re all children of God. God is no respector of people. And yet it’s still all so uneven.

I know, too, that God gave us breath, gave us life and provided a way back to him and that that alone is more than any of us deserve. But I also know tonight where I’ll sleep; so many don’t. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from when so many families do. I have time and capability to sit here and write lengthy comments like these when for others there aren’t enough hours in the day for them to earn enough to survive. Cancer strikes randomly, but I’ve got access to medical treatment with world class doctors and medical insurance to offset the cost.

I think what bothers me is not so much that I think God has turned his face away but that instead he’s turned it sideways.