Matthew 6:31-32 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
According to actionagainsthunger.org someone in the world dies of hunger every 4 seconds.
Every. 4. Seconds.
While I'm writing this, dozens of people have already died.
Most of these people are young children. But some don't die. Some live for a long time first with starvation, illness, parasites, and unsafe drinking water.
But God will provide, they say. For whom? For you and your white, Republican friends?
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
It may surprise you to learn that Africa, where a lot of people are dying of starvation, is a 40% Christian continent. A lot of these starving people are praying people. People who ask, and believe. But people who, by and large, don't always receive.
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
The sad part is that a lot of people believe this and ignore reality. The reality that people aren't getting what they need. That all that praying isn't solving a thing.
If you want to change the world, prayer just doesn't cut it. I think religious people know this, deep down, which is why they go to the doctor when they're sick instead of trying to pray their infections away. If praying did anything, the world wouldn't have such overwhelming misery. We're all partially responsible for that. Pray all you want but if you want to actually help someone, you'll have to get off your ass.
Granted, if Christians followed the Bible as stated they would spend a lot less time complaining about the poor and more time feeding them. But most of them just quote these verses to encourage themselves and their friends that everything will work out okay for them, then they ignore all the people around them for whom it is obviously not working out.
It's not, of course, entirely the fault of religious people that so many people are starving. Barriers to overcoming poverty are complex and often involve societal and governmental systems that need to be altered. But these problems certainly aren't going to fix themselves by prayer. They require education and understanding, a plan of action. It isn't enough to say "I believe God will provide" and remain ignorant and impotent.
We produce enough food to feed the world but it isn't distributed equally. Some people have too much and others not enough. It isn't fair. That's how reality is. If this is ever going to change, it's going to change the way our lifespans did - through science - through changes in production methods, societal changes (many of which are being held back by religious beliefs) and use of efficient energy sources.
It's easy to say that God will provide when you're a wealthy American (and even many poor Americans are wealthy compared to the poor in 3rd world countries). It's easy to say God will provide when you have friends to lean on, family to turn to, charities to hit up for help. We have resources that a lot of other countries simply don't have. To say we are "blessed" implies that God wanted it that way because we're all super special over here, or maybe we're praying the "right way" and they aren't. It implies that for some unknown reason, God must value us more than the people whose children he lets die every day. Isn't it weird how we get all concerned when it's white children who are dying?
What if it were your child whom you couldn't afford to feed? What if it were your family walking miles in the heat to get to a source of iffy water that gives you the diarrhea that is killing you? What if it was you working endless hours for $1.25 a day? Would you still say god provided for all your needs?
If we need to be "God's hands and feet" then what good is all this foolish talk of praying and God's provision? It sounds like the only ones who will be doing any providing, is people. We've had thousands of years of "God's provision" and "coincidentally" thousands of years of rampant death. It's time for us to take the wheel.
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