My reply is to both you and the caller who is very frustrated because he doesn't understand why God lets children die in war or by starvation and other dire conditions.

My response as the former Tucson Liberal Christian Examiner is this: it does not require divine intervention to put a stop to these things. God does not need to overrule human conditions when WE CAN STOP THESE THINGS OURSELVES.

The problem is not God: it is simple human priorities. Should God make food rain down from the sky when WE can do that with helicopters full of food?
We need to do our job as human beings.

Another issue is this: in question form, do we live lives of consequence? In other words, do we matter? Does what we do matter? I think obviously it does, and otherwise, if God just steps in to end one thing, BUT NOT ANOTHER, does that make us puppets?

Let's say that God makes magical food appear to feed children in Africa. But then why doesn't he cure AIDS? Why doesn't he just make everyone in the Islamic State die from a heart attack? And...why didn't he do that to keep Hitler from doing what he did?

Obviously this is a slippery slope. Christians believe that human freedom is absolute, only to be restrained by our own civil law. So if your caller would like to do something about hunger, he ought to adopt a child through a rescue organization, or donate to his local food pantry. (In an interesting turn of events, many churches in every city have food pantry giveaway programs.)

We need to elect people who put human need in priority. It's that simple.