Job 9:17 (NIV)
He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason.
With thousands of people dead as a result of the recent tsnami, many people are asking tough questions about God and justice. Think about how you would feel if one in four people that you know are dead. The loss is horrific. And the death toll will continue to rise as food and water becomes a problem in the devastated areas.
After a major tragedy, it is not odd for people to blame God. They feel that God has abandoned them. Catastrophes cause us to come face to face with our own humanity and the frailty of life.
One of the oldest questions about God seems to be, "Why would a good God let bad things happen to innocent people?" Going all the way back to the story of Job in the Bible, we can see that sometimes God allows things to happen that seem down right unjust or unfair. Job lost everything in one day, and he was a righteous man, loved by God. I tend to believe the the struggle to find an answer for why calamity happened may have even been tougher for Job to handle than the physical pain and reality of his situation. Where do you turn when you believe that even God is against you?
Tragedies like the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami causes people to wonder where was God on December 26, 2004? God must have either been on vacation, is indifferent to the plight of man, is vendictive, or is trying to teach us a lesson. Or maybe there is another explanation. Maybe the tsunami happened for the same reason Hitler killed thousands of Jews or AIDS has ravaged Africa. Now you may be thinking that those things resulted from people's decisions where the tsunami just happened. But the Bible paints a picture of sin that shows all of creation groans under the weight of sin. One day, there will be no more earthquakes, hurricanes, disease or death.
Romans 8:19-22 (NIV)
19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Are there geological,climate and weather related reasons for natural disasters? Sure! But I also believe that sin impacts nature and plays a role in natural catastrophes as the earth groans under the weight of sin.
Jesus talked about the birth pains of the end times as earthquakes, and famines. These should be expected. I believe that the recent tsunami merely reflects the destructive nature of a planet filled with sin. In the garden of Eden before sin, everything was peaceful on the face of the earth. As sin entered the picture, it changed the balances in nature as well as affecting man. Primarily, God does not intervene in human events because of free will. The nations rage and bad things happen because we are living in a fallen world. God is in the process of redeeming it. But the balance has not been fully restored. And while God does intervene at times, generally, He lets man have dominion over the earth. One of the bad things about sin is it tends to have negative impacts on others. Sometimes it builds up negative consequences like a wall and comes crashing down on some unsuspecting person. The sin of one generation impacts succeeding generations. Sin by its very nature is not fair. It corrupts and leads to destruction.
While no one can really explain all the possible reasons why disasters happen, we do know that God can turn anything around and make something good out of it. Sometimes storms raise questions that are best left unanswered because the brunt of the answer is even greater than the force caused by the storm.
