I wrote a blog last night that I planned to publish today, but this whole Haiti thing has just got my heart torn and it is really this disaster that I feel God is asking me to address today.

I’m sure that you have all seen the pictures and watched the videos.  The pain, the loss and the hopelessness over there is just pretty much overwhelming.  Children suffering, dying, and losing parents; individuals roaming the streets helpless; murder, looting and the complete collapse of a nation leave me feeling numb. What are we to do with that?  Where is God is that?  Like many of you, I have sent a few dollars to some relief organizations, I have prayed for the people, and I have even considered applying for a passport and going over there myself, but it all seems so little, so impotent.  Even as I type this there is this sense of ‘what can I say, I really have nothing to offer.’

I suspect Gideon felt a similar hopelessness.  His land and his people overrun by the Midianites, he had spent the last seven years just trying to survive.  We find him in Judges chapter six hiding in a wine press, foraging for a little grain to make bread.  Those words spoken by the angel of the Lord must have sounded almost laughable, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” (v. 12).  His response certainly doesn’t sound warrior like, “if the Lord is with us, why has all of this happened to us?  Where are all of the wonders our fathers told us about …” (v.13).  Gideon had been watching the devastation around him, he had felt his own fear and powerlessness in it all, and he wants to know why God hasn’t done something about it. His question sounds all too familiar. 

God’s response isn’t really one of comfort either.  He doesn’t say, ‘Oh it will all be OK, I’ve got everything under control, just rest and trust me.’  No, he says to Gideon, this ‘mighty warrior’, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.” (v.14). He places the ball square back in Gideon’s court.  Oh how that verse haunts me.  What strength do I have against such a travesty as Haiti?

Enter Paul’s Mystery.  Really it was God’s mystery, Paul just explains it to us in Colossians chapter 1, verse 27.  ‘To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.’

Haiti isn’t about what we can do; it is about what God can do through Christ in us.  It isn’t just Christ, it is Him in us.  That is why we are told to go in the strength we have, for we have immeasurable strength. 

I still don’t know what I am supposed to do, but I know what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to hide in the winepress any longer.

To the King,

David