ODJ: have mercy
January 5, 2010
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress (v.9).
READ: Psalm 31
Within a week of moving to East Africa, I was summoned to a northern Ugandan hospital to help an orphaned boy named Olwa Elly. I’d befriended him months earlier on a short-term visit to Uganda. Sorrow consumed me when I arrived and found the 9-year-old lying listlessly on a filthy cot in an overcrowded, understaffed, fly-infested ward. The healthy and active Olwa Elly I once knew was now an emaciated child with an undiagnosed illness that had rendered him unrecognizable.
Two days later, Olwa Elly died. I took on the heartbreaking task of selecting his burial suit and coffin, and then joined his wailing relatives and friends as they laid the young boy’s body to rest.
Olwa Elly’s was the first of 11 children’s funerals that I attended during my initial year in Uganda. I’ve come to understand that, in Africa—a continent with alarmingly high child mortality rates, multitudes are weary from the sting of death.
Again and again, I’ve heard African men, women, and children cry out like the psalmist David, who pleaded, “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and soul are withering away. I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness” (Psalm 31:9-10).
You and I may not know how to abolish the wars, corruption, and diseases that claim the lives of millions of Africans each year, but we do have the capacity to pray for the desolate in foreign lands.
Today, ask God to show you how to pray for suffering around the world. Let His compassion fill you so you can echo the prophet Isaiah who said, “The Sovereign Lord has given me His words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary” (Isaiah 50:4). —Roxanne Robbins
What mercy have you received from God? How will you share it with others this week?
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Hey,
Just wondering – why does God allow for suffering in such innocent lives such as these? Does He not say that He will clothe and provide for us?
Also, what about the salvation of such unsaved souls? Does God take them home with Him to finally have eternal happiness, or will they simply ‘die’ again?
Sorry, just some thoughts I had on the issue before I read this article. Still, it has been insightful for me, will continue praying!
In His love,
Bernice
Hi Bernice,
You are probably going to be disappointed at my response… but I think we may never find the answers to the type of questions that you ask. We humans can never fully comprehend the way God works (ref Isaiah 55:8-9), but we should still nonetheless trust that our Lord is a good God. Take the story of Job for example, God never at any point reveal to him why he was put through all the tragedies. Yet we know that Job was blessed again by the Lord right at the end because Job remained faithful in spite of all the inexplicable suffering. So perhaps the key is not to focus on the things that we do not know, but to keep our sights on what Jesus clearly calls us to do and follow.
Shalom,
Anthony