On one of the Christian Google communities I follow, a perfidious little troll regularly posts photos of starving children, highlighting his point with accompanying commentary like, “Where is the good and gracious God?”

Actually, he’s more verbally adroit than that — quite shrewd, actually — and to avoid confrontation or actual dialogue he sets up the post so that people cannot respond. They can only look at the pictures, ache for the child, and say, “Yeah, where IS God? Why does He let all this suffering abound?”

Every child should have enough to eat, and many concerned individuals do what they can to alleviate suffering. They take seriously the injunction to be God’s hands and feet. Lilac Festival, original oil painting by Steve Henderson; licensed open edition print at Framed Canvas Art.

In other words, why doesn’t God DO something?

It’s a reasonable question, one that has baffled us through the ages, but before we get too caught up in it, we might also ask,

“Well, why don’t we?”

Given that we humans are the major cause behind why humanity suffers, we can — collectively and individually — look at viable ways to relieve whatever it is in our power to alleviate. Doesn’t seem like much? On an individual basis, no, but if one individual refuses to do something, anything, because it doesn’t seem like it will do any good, then that’s at least one other human being on the planet not getting some help that he could otherwise get.

Use your resources wisely and well, and don’t throw them at big business, global corporate oligarchies.

Please follow the link to my Commonsense Christianity blog at BeliefNet and read Why Doesn’t God DO Something?

I encourage you, also, to look at my book, Live Happily on Less, because one of the reasons the world experiences the suffering it does is because a small group of power- and money-hungry people don’t want to share with the rest of the kids on the playground.

By learning to spend our money wisely and well, we not only improve our own lifestyle, but we limit, just a bit, the funding that we send to these people.