Redeeming Haiti

I think the thing I love most about God’s character is His desire for redemption. He loves creating good out of bad. Bringing life out of death. Restoring hope to completely hopeless situations. In fact, it often seems that His favorite time to redeem is at the very point where redemption seems impossible.

Do you think anyone who knew Saul would have believed he’d be one of the most outspoken Christ-followers in history?

All this thinking about God and His love of redeeming things came from reading the recent cover story for Relevant magazine on the situation in Haiti. It’s long but extremely well written and informative.

No one in their right mind would call the earthquake that hit Haiti a good thing. It was utterly devastating. And yet still there is good.

Because of the earthquake’s destruction, Haiti is now having to start with what feels like a nearly clean slate. The [corrupt and inefficient] government was toppled. The [inadequate] school system was destroyed. Proof of [unjust] land ownership is now virtually impossible. The [enormous and unbridgeable] gap in economic status was decimated, putting government officials in tents next to poor slum-dwellers.

Do you see how, along with hundreds of thousands of lives, injustice and corruption also took a hit?

Not only that, but according to the article, here’s a quick list of the good that has come of the earthquake:

• Immediately following the earthquake, people called on the name of Jesus. Not Voodoo. Not Catholic saints. Not anything or anyone else. They called out to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
• The country held a government-initiated national day of prayer.
• More people are going to church. More people have accepted Christ in the past six months than in the previous two years.
• The new school system that is being rebuilt is aiming to allow for free public education, something that Haiti has never had.
• The government and leadership in Haiti have the opportunity to install leaders with integrity.
• A devastated and poorly functioning capital city was demolished and can now be rebuilt and decentralized.
• The Church in Haiti has the opportunity to prove itself.

It makes me supremely happy to think about how what Satan intended for destruction, God is using for good. When is the dumb devil going to get the fact that it’s over? It was over at the cross.

The devil lost.