When the World Weeps - Part 4

• Headlines will fade from everyday news and will appear on magazine covers recapping years past. As believing people, may we not forget that people suffer because of sin's ugly effect on the world and all those in it. May my time with Pia on the narra bench change the way I see the people of the world and the lives they live. May the images of anguish from earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis change the way we all see those needs. What should we do with what we see and know?
• For now, and for many days after tragedy, we can pray. When you see masses of desperate faces and feel overwhelmed, pray for one. You might call her “Pia,” and the Lord will know who you mean. Pray daily, for each life unfolds with challenges every day, and she can only receive and keep food for one day, supplies for one day, and strength for one day. Pray that those of the world who weep in the day of calamity will know provision for their needs, protection in their life, and the presence of the True God.
  
• For later, may we resist the urge to stuff the images into our distant memory and, instead, get involved in a long term outreach for another people group. Experiencing day to day physical needs of life, hearts are often ready to understand spiritual needs. We can’t know what region will be next or what disaster will be blamed, but we know needs will continue to unfold in lives around the world, and we can uphold them in prayer as their sisters & brothers across the globe.

Thanks for taking time with me over these days and to consider how to better understand, pray, and help ... "when the world weeps." It can feel "heavy" weeping with those who weep, but I didn't want to ignore the suffering of many I love in places I love. At any time in the world, someone is suffering. Don't you look forward to the day when there will be no more weeping and no more pain? It will be a day when the pain caused by sin will all be made right and finally conquered. I can't wait for that day. To close these days, I end with a poem:

Why do I have this soft chair, when their plastic ones floated away?
Why is a roof up above me, when they are exposed to the day?
And why do they wade through brown water, with rats and disease they can't see?
Why can't I give them this soft chair? They're more deserving than me.

Why didn't the rain fall down lightly to make the rice grow for the need?
Instead it fell too fast and hard, leaving so many people to feed.
Why did the world grow so awful, from the paradise that it was at first?
The whole earth groans and people wait and, yet, it's not the worst.

And so we long with confidence for when all things will be new,
And no more floods or wars or tears will fill our world with You.