Picture by Juan Barreto, AFP, Getty Images c/o The Canadian National Post.
With everything going on in Haiti, and all the work that God has given us to do there, I struggle deeply with the people here in America, so against helping. The thing that saddens me to the core is that the people I know that are the most against helping the Hatian people are Christians?! They are CHRISTIANS?!?! Their argument, help our own first. But if we are all God's children, aren't they our own too? It seems that alot of American Christians have really lost their way. I keep hearing this argument to help America first, then Haiti. When did God begin to value Americans above all the rest of the world's citizens? What has happened to America that we believe this? Now, if you want to say that you are unable to help because you don't have extra money right now, that is understandable. It is a hard time economically, but if your argument is that we have a responsibility to American people over other people, well I think you are wrong. Also, this argument that people should take the $10 they are giving to Haiti and give it to the U.S., well you may have just convinced them not to help Haiti, but I doubt they stopped what they were doing and researched where else to give that $10. Let's also not blame the Haitian citizens for their government. We can judge how they misused their funds originally, but the poor crying baby whose parents were killed in the earthquake had nothing to do with the misappropriation of government funds. Does she deserve to be ingnored because she isn't American? I think that Americanism is sick and pervaded, and to find ourselves superior over others merely because they are in a third world country whose government corruptly devestated a people financially, well that's the worst kind of pride. God calls us to be a light and a city on a hill. Well, if we just stay on that hill, protecting our own skins, we are nothing like the Jesus we claim to follow. My heart is sickened this morning by "healthy debate." I am broken by what I see around me. It is disheartening to see that the most generous people in these times often turn out to be those that claim no faith at all, but help in the name of humanity. How much greater would the help of spirituality be in a time like this? Shame on those of us who think that helping here and helping there are mutually exclusive.
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:17-18
1 comment:
We are called to care for those in need. Period. Last I checked the Bible didn't include a map detailing exactly how far our care and compassion is allowed to reach, but maybe there's been a recent addendum?
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