A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away (Proverbs 13:23).

Have you ever really considered the paradox of Iceland and Zimbabwe?  One lies on a volcanic island in the middle of the North Atlantic, with one of the shortest growing seasons of the year, as compared with other inhabited parts of the world, and scant vegetation of any sort... And the other lies among leafy green rain forests, with roiling rivers and roaring waterfalls, where it would seem that just about anything can grow if planted into the ground... Yet in which country are there people dying of malnutrition and disease?  And in which country are the people generally healthy and prosperous?  It just doesn't make sense, really, for Iceland to be the affluent one and Zimbabwe to be the struggling one... But that's the way it is, just the way it goes in Proverbs 13:23:

A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away.

Our world is plagued by horrible injustices.  Personal greed and corruption, post-colonial angst, political currents... all of these various sorts of injustice can muck up even the best of natural circumstances.  People can point fingers at the Africans or the Europeans or the Americans -- or whomever -- but all fingers ultimately point to injustice.  It doesn't really make sense why this seems to happen MORE often in the places that are naturally blessed with sunshine and rain and rainforests, such as Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, for instance.  But we can hardly ignore the fact that injustice is on the prowl -- in the south, in the north, in the east, and in the west (yes, even in Iceland where the 2009 economic recession had some of its harshest consequences!).  Proverbs 13:23 is interesting in that it doesn't offer any hope or remedy for the injustice; it just describes it.  But a description is a starting point, at least.  A starting point helping us to cry out for Justice.