"Twelve-year-old Elizabeth - not her real name - was walking in fields with her brother, following an aunt who had gone ahead to work on the family's plot of land near the town of Man in north-western Ivory Coast, when they were approached by "les casques bleues", as UN peacekeepers are known.I was outraged when I read this. Why did this happen?
"Elizabeth" was raped by 10 UN peacekeepers in Ivory CoastHer brother took a biscuit from one of the men; she refused.
As Elizabeth tried to run away, one of the soldiers seized hold of her. There were 10 of them.
I spoke to Elizabeth near her home. She said: "They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me... I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing... I was terrified.
"Then they just left me there bleeding..."
Elizabeth was raped by 10 peacekeepers and abandoned.
Her village elders say they tried to take the case to UN officials at the camp nearby. But Domade Jean-Baptiste, one of the village chiefs, said they were made to wait for ages and then sent away.
Elizabeth's brutal rape is one of an unknown number of sexual assaults carried out by peace keepers and aid workers, the very people who are brought in to post-conflict areas around the world to protect the vulnerable...."
This little girl's life is effectively over. She is destined to be filled with a life of anger, hate, promiscuity, shame, failure and ruin.
Following the logic of my earlier post, it was Satan who is Evil himself, collaborating with man using his free will to choose evil.
"the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8)
The devil has come to "steal, and to kill, and to destroy". (John 10:10)
Since God has legions of angels, even one of whom could have prevented this, why did He allow this to happen?
I don't know.
Mike Ensley of Exodus writes that "our suffering matters to God... He does not coldly survey the landscape of our brokenness but 'collects our tears.' "
You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book? (Psalm 56:8)
If you are reading this, pray with me that this girl and hundreds of children like her will be healed in Jesus' name; healed in their bodies, minds, spirit and soul for the tragedy they have experienced.
Pray also that justice will be done and the evil perpetrators will be punished.
Pray that the devil will be defeated especially in that corner of the world.
2 comments:
I will try to shed a some light on what could be paradoxical, the apparent 2 Wills of God.
As you know, the Will of God is revealed in His word. It is the Will of God that all be saved (1 Tim 2:4 & 2 Peter 3:9) and yet we know that most will not be saved. So why doesn’t an All Mighty, All Knowing, All Seeing God get His way (Will)?
Jesus explains it in his parable of the evil vinedresser in Mark 12. In this familiar story the landowner builds a beautiful vineyard. leases it to a farmer (vinedresser) and then leaves for a far country. Then the story talks about how the owner at harvest time sends a servant to receive some of the fruit and how they beat him and eventually when the owner sends his son to collect they killed him. Then what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the evil farmer.
A more modern example could be put like this. You own a piece of property and know that you will be gone for a significant period of time. So, you lease it to an acquaintance for 5 years and then leave the country. While you are gone the renters paint the house with pink and blue stripes, inside and out. In addition they cut the trees down and ruin the landscaping. You hear of these things happening, but the terms of this particular lease have not been broken and you are powerless to stop the carnage. What will you do when the 5 years are up? You’re gonna kick them out for sure.
It wasn’t the owners ‘will’ that the bad things happened but they had given-up control (leased) and could not stop the destruction until the lease was up. Another good example of this is the movie “Pacific Heights” with Michale Keaton being the evil tenant.
The point I’m trying to make here is that when in Gen 1:28 God gave dominion on earth to Adam He in actuality granted an ‘earth lease’ to him. (This was illustrated by Jesus in the above example)Then, when he ate of the forbidden fruit, Adam transfered the rights of the ‘earth lease’ over to satan who then became ruler of this world. At that point Jesus had to come down to earth as a man, live a sin-free life and then claim the earth lease back for mankind. He did not do this as God, but as a man, the second Adam.
When God gave dominion to Adam he made Adam ruler of this world. God gave Adam free-will, his earth to do with as he pleased. God could not cancel the lease (go back on his Word) just because Adam relinquished it to satan. God will not violate His Word. Man was not capable of living a sin-free life once his flesh became carnal, but Jesus, the second Adam, came here and redeemed us. Jesus purchased the earth lease back by his perfect life, death and resurrection.
We have now been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We have been restored to our proper dominion here on earth. “It is finished”. Jesus’ work on the cross was a complete work. It was an over-payment! The devil has already been defeated. By his stripes we were healed. He has given us power over poverty, sickness and even death, we have dominion as Adam did.
Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge…)
So, to revert back to the example of a child who is abused. Was it God’s Will? Of course not. Could God do anything about it? Not without violating His Word (the earth lease). For now, man has dominion on earth and until the earth lease is up it is up to man to right these wrongs, exercise our dominion. When the earth lease is up God will return and wreck His vengence on the evil vinedresser.
Randy,
Thank you for shedding light on why God allows bad things to happen.
"Could God do anything about it? Not without violating His Word (the earth lease)."
I wonder why though, sometimes it seems as though some unbelievers are "protected" from harm; in this case if the girl's father or mother had been present, this might not have happened. Sometimes it does seem as if God interjects people or circumstances to protect the innocent even if they are unbelievers. I wish it happened more often.
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