Eli ,Eli Lama sabachthani?

This one has me stumped. For nights I’ve been wresting it out with myself, tossing and turning to what seems like endless sleepless nights. How is it that one can work so hard, only to have the carpet swept from under him. Projects that he has conceived, formulated and worked tirelessly for months, only to have that hijacked without so much as a thank you, only to be given to the likes of apple polishers that take hold of it as though it was theirs to begin with?

And that started me deeper into the depths of a feeling of despair that doesn’t seem to have a glimmer of hope, save for the words that I once had in the pages of my Bible that read “The will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”

In all honesty, though those words can offer a short while of hope, I cannot for the life of me give answers to those that are in deep despair based on those few words.

What does one say to the destitute mother who’s trying desperately to feed her children who are dying from starvation? Or the leper who’s shunned by all of society, including his/her own family and friends (that were once there)?

Yes, these are truly heart-breaking, gut wrenching. I cannot for the life see how hope remains when such things happen.

And to shield off from such “hideousness”, society, that’s you and I, have developed hearts of stones and eyes that don’t see any of these pain and suffering just so that we needn’t feel anguished for those that desperately need help.

We even have the cheek to look at our own troubles, compare them to others that are in worse state of affairs, and then comfort ourselves that “we’ve not reached bottom… yet”. Crude as it sounds, you know it’s all very true. Why? Because, like an episode of Alley McBeal once scripted, “What makes your troubles so much more bigger than anyone else’s?... Because they’re mine!”

But unfortunately (or fortunately), many of us still feel the pain and anguish through all that smokescreen. Whether we want to accept it or not, we are bound by hearts that are not made of stone, by consciences that well, give us endless sleepless nights of torment, especially so when we know we still have a God to answer to.

So, while we see no answer coming from God for all these suffering and despair, we are still duty bound to honour that part of us which makes us humans – the humanity that resides in our minds and emotions.

Yes, there were many times when I told God to go screw himself, that I don’t see him lending out a hand for all the pain going about. Of course, mine included… Yes, a lot of anger, a lot of unanswered questions and a whole lot of pain.

The words of Christ becomes all too real : “Eli, Eli Lama sabachthani?” – My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?

So, if you asked me why? I honestly don’t know. But at least this I am sure of. Mankind is the most cruel of all living things for hording food from his dying fellow human beings, enforcing debts that can never be repaid in one’s lifetime and exalting evil and cruelness that are beyond words because of nothing more than mere greed that goes beyond boundaries.

The unrestrained man is the most hideous of all living organisms.

At the end of it all, I doubt we can truly blame God for all the pain and suffering that we’ve caused. Neither can the devil be blamed, for in many, many ways, we’re more evil than evil itself. Hell, we even make satan look good.

So if there’s just one plea I can make, it is this: Humanity is not about greed. It is about the godliness that resides in us all. And we have a choice to either turn ourselves as gods or devils… just pray that we’ll be human enough to choose the former over the latter. God knows we need it.