Orphans

I wanted to share something that I heard in a chapel forum here at ACU just the other day that I thought was sooo interesting. When I think of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah I always think that God brought down his wrath upon the city because of their drunkeness, idolatry, and adultry. They were a very sinful city and the only people that were still loyal to God was Lot and his family. But we had a speaker in chapel the other day that spoke about the homeless and taking care of them. He called to my attention a passage in Ezekiel 16:48 that says,

"Now this was the sin of you sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

I want to call special attention to the part that says, "they did not help the poor and needy." This was impacting to me because I had never heard this part before and that this was one of the reasons that God brought down Sodom. I can't help but think about the poor and homeless that we daily brush aside as if we don't see them, and if we don't see them then we are not obligated to help them. Even more than the homeless are the numberless widows and orphans that we as a church do not aide. It scares me to see these reasons listed on why Sodom was destroyed.....they sound so much like our world today.

It is times like this that I realize we have a truly awesome God. He is willing to put aside his wrath and still love us unconditionally. We truly do not deserve it. I know that we are making a great impact by our adoption of Karleigh Mei, but I pray that we never become comfortable with that being enough. Because it is not. We search out aide to other countries, yet we look past the poor in our community around us. God grant me the grace to daily aide the poor and the needy.