Sans l'Éternel qui nous protégea, Quand les hommes s'élevèrent contre nous,
Ils nous auraient engloutis tout vivants, Quand leur colère s'enflamma contre nous;
Alors les eaux nous auraient submergés, Les torrents auraient passé sur notre âme;
Alors auraient passé sur notre âme Les flots impétueux.
Béni soit l'Éternel, Qui ne nous a pas livrés en proie à leurs dents!
Notre âme s'est échappée comme l'oiseau du filet des oiseleurs; Le filet s'est rompu, et nous nous sommes échappés.
Notre secours est dans le nom de l'Éternel, Qui a fait les cieux et la terre"
"...Se Senye a k'ap pote nou sekou, se li menm ki fe syel la ak late a."
"... Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."
I saw this on the back of one of those colorfully painted taptaps (buses) on my way home from one of the clinics and I've been pondering the Psalm ever since.
I'm sure Haitians believe, by and large, that God is the creator of heaven and earth, but, since I don't speak the language and the only English speaking Haitians I know are devout Christians, I wonder if they actually believe that their help comes from the Lord.
I wonder if they ever wonder how God, the creator who clearly demonstrates His power over nature in the Bible, could shake the earth, kill hundreds of thousands and then send such feeble and clueless "helpers" to clean up the mess. I wonder how they reconcile this. I'm not sure how I reconcile it. I know Haitian men who are much younger than me who are spiritually much stronger in their faith and more spiritually mature than I am, but might be offended by this question.
I love God, I trust Jesus as my Lord and savour and believe that His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection brings me the promise of eternal life and I put my trust in that fact.
How someone who doesn't know the love and grace of God can actually believe that God is helping them is difficult for me to wrap my head around.
Chronic preventable illness, devastating communicable diseases, horrible water that is poisonous to you and rampant malnutrition can't be fixed by me or my team. We can't even put a noticeable dent in it. How is it that that appears to be God "helping" anyone to them?
God may be a God who allows some to suffer and others, probably like you and me, to flourish and thrive, but I understand Him to be a God who has suffered and still suffers with us all. Maybe I needed this trip to comprehend that.
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