What a great reminder from Justin Taylor quoting J.I. Packer about how to understand the “unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things” that happen to us.
Perhaps he means tostrengthen us in patience, good humor, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under especially difficult conditions.
Perhaps he has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us.
Perhaps he wishes tobreak us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit.
Perhaps his purpose is simply to draw us closer to himself in conscious communion with him; for it is often the case, as all the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest. . . .
Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling.
Michael Wallenmeyer on how change in the church can often be painful, but needed:
Here is what the gospel tells me, death precedes life. The good news of the cross is that Jesus was willing to go through the pain so that others could experience new life. My greatest hope and desire is that this same gospel truth is at work in our church. God is always reforming His church, and sometimes reformation means something dying for God’s glory.
No one has ever known the sorrow our Lord experienced [in Gethsemane]. Luke the physician says, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).
But what was the cause of Christ’s bloody sweat?
It was not the pain that caused the horror. It was not the shame. It was not the imminent desertion of his disciples. It was the fact that he was going to pay the penalty for our sins! The understanding of what the sacrifice meant, which only omniscience could bring, caused our Lord to break out in a bloody sweat (emphasis mine). It was the crushing realization of the horror that crushed him. Christ’s resolve to endure the agony, even at such a great price, demonstrates his lordship and divinity.
150,000: Latest estimate of the death toll, from the Haitian Health Ministry. The European Union and the Pan American Health Organization, which are coordinating the health-sector response, have estimated the quake killed 200,000 people. 194,000: Number of injured 134: Estimated number of people rescued by international search teams since the quake
THE EFFECT
9 million: Population of Haiti 3 million: Estimated number of people affected by the quake 1 million: Estimated number of displaced people 800,000 to 1 million: People who need temporary shelter 235,000: People who have left Port-au-Prince using free transportation provided by the government. The number who left by private means is undetermined. At least 50: Aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or higher that have hit Haiti since the January 12 quake
THE CHILDREN
300,000: Children younger than 2 who need nutritional support 90: Percentage of schools in Port-au-Prince that have been destroyed 363: Haitian orphans who have been evacuated
THE RESPONSE IN DOLLARS
$1.12 billion: International aid pledges $783 million: Funds received as of Tuesday $317 million: U.S. assistance as of Monday
THE RESPONSE IN MANPOWER
17,000: U.S. military personnel in and around Haiti 8 million: Meals the World Food Programme has delivered to nearly 400,000 people 300: Aid distribution sites that are up and running 130 to 150: Flights arriving every day at the single-runway Port-au-Prince airport with aid
EFFECT ON FOREIGNERS
12,000: U.N. workers in the country at the time of the quake 53: U.N. workers still missing At least 82: U.N. workers dead 27: U.N. workers injured or hospitalized 11,500: Americans and family members who have been evacuated 4,800: Americans unaccounted for
In the devastation left after the Haiti earthquake, the heaviest blow is falling on the weakest: children. Already poor, underfed and underschooled, tens of thousands of Haiti’s children now face the cruelest catastrophe: They are alone. Their parents are dead or have disappeared in the chaos. They have lost their homes, their friends, their sense of security. They are hungry, bleeding and afraid — of the present and of the future.
Let us pray and seek out ways to help kids in Haiti.
This is beautiful. Apparently, Carlos Whittaker was recording a video in a bad part of town when a homeless man named Danny began to spontaneously worship with him.
