rhetorical questions

I sit awake at 2 am again tonight wondering if I'll sleep or not. I'm overwhelmed with so many questions without answers that sleep evades me. I sat and read a few friends blogs and find their hearts are amazingly close to the same place as mine tonight. I'm angry, yet I feel helpless. I've heard of the old man throwing starfish back into the ocean to save each life when the young boy asks why he's doing it because It doesn't matter how many he throws back, he can't even make a dent in the amount of dying starfish on the beach. Yet he continues to throw them back and says, "It will matter to this one."

I think sometime we live in the past. We judge ourselves by what we've done in the past rather than what we are doing today for God. My husband was defending himself today as I fussed about him not doing something by saying how much he has done. I laugh because the isolated incident had nothing to do with the past, but the present situation. I didn't care what he usually does or what he did yesterday, but what took place at that moment. I've been thinking that the Lord does that so often with me. "Yes," he might say, "You've done this or that in my name, but where are you right now on what I've asked of you? You sit back like a teenager comparing yourself to your peers in 'goodness', but I don't care about everyone else, I care about you." We like to live in the glory years of when we were so close to the Lord that we forget He wants us to walk in those "glory years" and experience Him daily. I want to talk about what the Lord did in my life yesterday, not ten years ago.

So, back to rhetorical questions or questions without answers...

How can't I humanly not worry about things when I am fully aware of the evils of this world?
How can I understand an infinite God in my finite mind?
How can I comprehend something I have no frame of reference for?
How can I actually influence major world issues like world hunger?
How can orphanages exist when there are huge waiting lists for people wanting to adopt?
How can I sit here with my heart breaking and not be paralyzed by the gravity of evil?
How can we accomplish anything when we need to spend nearly half of every day sleeping?
How much of my day is spent preserving our decaying bodies?

Don't get me wrong, I can answer most of those questions with a "churchy" diatribe, and I know what I should think or say, but if I'm honest with myself these questions fuel how I live my life. I worry not because I don't think God's in control or able to care for me, but because I suffer from the sin and I know it is alive and overtaking this earth like an epidemic. Right has become wrong and wrong has become right. Morality is now considered arbitrary and situational depending on one's perspective.

I pause again to the best answer I have... Prayer. On my knees I'm reminded that I'm not in control... at all. I'm reminded that the quality of my life is reflected in the distance I am to Christ. I might not be able to change the world, but there are two words which guide my life and when I follow them I'm right where I'm supposed to be. They are "Yes, Lord." Yes Lord to anything you ask of me anytime, anywhere. If I could only truly grasp the gravity of prayer and divine action I might not have so many questions and less need for answers.