Day 37 The Kingdom, Immigration and Health Care

Day 37
I’m close to the end of my 40 day journey. What did I learn? What difference has this made? More on that later.
Reading for the day: Ecclesiastes 4
Qoheleth is not a happy guy, he says that a dead man is happier than a person that is alive but even better not to be born. Why? The evil of this world is horrible. I am not sure what evil he saw but it included the oppressing of people.
1 Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.
I have seen a lot but maybe not as much as Q. I saw the people of Cuba, oppressed for decades without. They had lost a lot of dignity, pride and desire to improve. The communist had stripped them of their privacy, freedom of speech and religion. I was so angry that my friends could not even talk in privacy, had to always watch their back and didn’t have enough food to eat, it was blatant oppression.
I have seen the oppression of poverty, ignorance and disease in countries like Botswana, Kenya and central America. The dump in Guatemala was horrible, children eating out of it. Some villages in Africa that have over 50%
HIV, children orphaned by diseases and having to care for the younger ones, prisons in these same places - you won't believe it.
And yet we complain in America that we that 30 million will now get healthcare, that an oppressed family who is here illegally is getting educated and given a chance to life. We get so worked up about these political issues without regard to the care for the oppressed. We rather the rich get richer than the poor get a hand. We get self-righteous in our political stance and follow the media leaders’ views because “We are American”. Jesus is not American and Capitalism is not the biblical way. I have to seek hard to find a few Evangelicals that care more about the undocumented workers than they care about the “law”. The Kingdom of God is much more powerful, its one where compassion, justice and righteousness rule. Stop pushing a political party or view . . . push God’s Kingdom, His Kingdom will rid of all oppression, injustice and evil. Lord, may your Kingdom come quickly!


Another picture of futility is the ambitious person that is constantly trying to work hard at bettering him circumstance from his neighbor. Competition is meaningless. Its much better to have a friend and help each other out. Our culture's value of independence is extreme, we lose community and yet we get more stuff. We live our lives full of stuff and empty in meaning.

9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken”

Lord, may I learn what it means to collaborate. May I stop all competition and seek to better my neighbor.