Way? No way.

I've been thinking a lot about how I say "God will put me where I need to be" and what I mean by that. I don't believe God creates tragedy but rather that God is in our responses to hardship. If God shook the Earth to cause earthquakes and tsunamis the implication would be that God is an arbitrary, wrathful god, which I don't believe. Disconnect. God is directly and intimately involved in my own personal life, leading me, (as Quakers say) opening way for me. All those people in Haiti who are still living in tents with little food or clean water? God is not responsible for the cataclysm that created their suffering but in their response to it? Huh? God loves me. I am given the resources to be free to pursue my higher calling. The people in Haiti spend their time avoiding assault while trying to not starve or die of dysentery. Are they not equal to me? Does God not love them? I think the problem is in my reasoning that God is directly and immediately involved in my life. I think I'm coming to understand that while God can and has "spoken" to me and gives me leadings, I'm not at all sure about the whole "way opening" thing. Does God open anything for us or do we make choices and connections and seek guidance and support in such a way as to create openings? Does it matter? Right now, to me, I think it does. If God is directly involved in our lives, why is he not directly involved opening the way to end suffering and oppression? Jesus said "the poor will always be with you" which suggests there will always be hunger, injustice, want. So how can I believe that God's paving the way for me but not for all those others. Might makes right? Survival of the fittest? I don't think so. Right now, I think I'm leaning toward the idea that I am able to connect with God, with the Christ-consciousness and doing so makes me want to move closer, to act Right, to deny my ego-impulses and to choose wisely: to reflect love. When I'm living in this way ("in the Cross" as old Quakers called it), I'm living in God and am more likely to put myself in situations in which the decisions I make reinforce my desire to reflect God's love.