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My heart is broken today for the people of Haiti.  Port au Prince, the capitol city of 2 million people, has been decimated according to news reports.  Perhaps you’ve seen the all-too-graphic images.  The death toll is rising; some reports are claiming as many as 50,000 have lost their lives, with another 3 million people injured or homeless according to a Red Cross official.   Of course, there is no way of knowing what the exact number is; they may never know exactly, but it’s tragic.  As a side note, the H1N1 “crisis” that has garnered the attention of our government and seemingly stirred a panic around the world, has accounted for 12, 799 deaths worldwide (19 of which have occurred in DFW)  . . . out of 6 billion people.  It has been labeled a pandemic.  I’m not making light of H1N1, but if that is a pandemic then what do you call the  Haitian earthquake?  To put it in perspective such an event  would be like eliminating 1/3 of the population of the city where I live, and affecting half of the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex.

What makes this tragic is not just that people died, but that many, if not most, died without knowing Jesus Christ as Savior.  What a tragedy.  A heart cries out, “Why do these things happen?!  Why do children die, and why do an already downtrodden people suffer even more?!”  And God’s broken heart-cry resonates in the darkness of this world that sin has marred what He created as good.  But God, being rich in mercy and grace, has made a way for desperate, hopeless, downtrodden and broken people to find hope in Him . . . even in the midst of sin’s aftermath.  The garden of Eden may have been the epicenter of a Fall that would shake and shatter humanity, but the cross was the epicenter of a Holy quake that would tear the veil that separated man from God,  break sin’s shackles, and offer life and reconciliation with God through Christ His Son.  It is such hope and life that the people of Haiti need, but it must been seen and spoken through the activity of those of us who have the hope of Christ and whose hearts have been stirred to do something.  So what will you do?

You can give money.  Be careful to whom you give because there are some, to be sure, who will seek to profit off of another person’s suffering.  I’m choosing to give through the Baptist Global Response fund.  You can do so if you choose by going online to http://www.baptistglobalresponse.com/new/giving.php

Within the next several months teams who have disaster relief training will be needed to go and help in Haiti.  So what can you do now?  Put your “yes” on the table and be ready to go if God open’s that door for you.  Begin now getting a passport if you don’t have one.  Locate a group who is looking to be mobilized as the time comes.  And most importantly . . . pray that God would use you to be Jesus to Haiti.

I am thankful that our government is responding and even taking the lead in the relief effort.  My prayer is that Christ-followers will respond with as much fervor, and in doing so display the compassion and hope that is only found in Jesus Christ.  My challenge to all who read this is simple:  do something.

I’m not sure what you desire when it comes to knowing God, but I want a deeper understanding of who He is and of His ways.  I don’t want to be distant.  I don’t want to be superficial.  I don’t want to give Him a passing glance, or a Sunday morning nod.  I want to know Him.

I want to know this God who created me; who fashioned me with His own hands; who has put His very breath in me; who has ordained the days of my life; who orders my steps.  I want to know the God who knew me in my mother’s womb; who knows the number of hairs on my head; who knows me inside-out.  I want to know this God who wants a relationship with me and loves me so deeply and passionately that He would sacrifice His son for His glory and my salvation.  I want to know this God who desires to dwell in me and change me from the inside-out; who wants to use me to change the world for His glory, beginning with those closest to me and reaching the stranger around the world.  I want to know this God who sustains me, heals me, comforts me, provides for me, endures me, and never gives up on me; this God who leads me in this journey of life, who whispers words of kindness and wisdom.  I want to know this God who makes Himself knowable, accessible, approachable, and yet know this God who, at the same time, is perfectly holy, awesome in power, gloriously majestic, clothed in splendor, unmatched, incomparable, and eternal.  I want to know this God who has promised the glorious return of His Son, King Jesus who will make all things new and rescue me from this world to Himself and His heavenly kingdom; I want to know Him!

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  –The apostle Paul (A radical Christ-follower)