The Face of a God

Yesterday, I received a number of messages and calls on my phone. People have been awake, since dawn, in sadness and anxiety over the world and its fate. The earthquake, the aftershocks of which have reached Lebanon from Turkey, did not prevent some friends from engaging in questioning about what this and that of them has called: “God’s absence”. I am not saying that they accused God of the disaster, but rather that they got past the distinction between what God knows and what He wants. God wants nothing but our salvation. How do we keep our thoughts straight in times of bitter disasters, epidemics, diseases, earthquakes, and corrupt policies…? The greatest answer I see today: if we increase our awareness that God, Who is innocent of evil, wants us to join Him in doing good. This is a word for today as well. There are calls, in our Church and elsewhere, to help the afflicted in Syria and Turkey. I hope that God will increase the awareness of the world today that he who is in need of charity has no religious nor political identity… Every afflicted person is the face of a God.