May our God strengthen the hands of those who are going to the rescue, and may he lift to himself those who are calling out to him from the rubble.
May the One who from his cross cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” be the eternal hope of those who now cry out for his mercy.
Apart from any physical, spiritual, social, or economic factors that might separate us from this disaster, may we all see the people of Port-au-Prince as brothers and sisters of our humanity. May we see their plight as a picture of our own mortality, our own need of hope beyond all other hopes… and for one another.
The Apostle Paul seems to be an example of those who feel so helpless while seeing the plight of those they dearly love. He said that he could wish that he himself could be separated from Christ for ever if (implied) that could mean the rescue of brothers and sisters “of the flesh” (Romans 9:3).
Except for pointing us to the source and evidence of such love, the Bible gives us no answers for the disaster that will continue to grow and spread in the hours and days ahead. It only gives us a hint of what the destroyer and accuser of our souls would do to turn us away from our God, and what our God allows for purposes that he alone understands.
No mortal knows why God allows such catastrophic disasters to happen to some (individually or collectively) and not to all (Luke 13:1-5). Yet we do know that the One who suffered more than any of us will ever suffer individually or collectively…is, even now, among the dying– calling out to those who are, and are not, crying out for him.
May God have mercy on our desperate brothers and sisters in Haiti. May God have mercy on them, and on us.