Are the disasters in the news punishment from God? A minister being interviewed by a national news reporter was asked about the recent catastrophe in Myanmar. He said that these natural disasters were warnings from God. The news man responded with undisguised anger, "You mean that God killed these innocent children to punish mankind! What had the children done to deserve punishment?" The minister stumbled his way along for a few embarrassing seconds until the news changed to another segment.

This is a troubling question for believers to answer. In the movie "Rudy", about a young man who desired with all his heart to play football for Notre Dame, Rudy asked a priest. "Is God going to let me play for Notre Dame?"

"In my twenty-five years in the ministry," replied the priest, "there are two things I have learned. There is a God and I'm not him."

Learning profound truths requires some wrestling. Another incontrovertible truth of life is the existence of a spiritual adversary who desires nothing more than to corrupt what is good. It is one of the less pleasant truths that humans must deal with it. But "it is what it is" as we say. How else do you explain the likes of Hitler and Stalin? Somehow those who don't want to acknowledge the first truth, manage to blame God when disaster strikes.

God did not create hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanoes. When creation was finished "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." (Gen. 1:31) That's not a description of a planet in chaos. The good earth is evidence of the righteousness of God. He did not create a bad world.

Yet many people have died in the last two months through "Acts of God" as insurance companies describe them? But if God didn't create these things, how did they happen? Again we are forced to conclude that there is an adversary with a desire to destroy what God has created. It's beyond the ability of mere man to understand the spirit realm. But God has told us what we need to know. The spiritual leader of this age is an adversarial being bent on destroying man. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Man's vulnerability leaves him in serious need of protection. God seems very willing to serve as the protector. When Jesus was told that Herod was trying to kill him, he said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem...how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" (Luke 13:34) God is willing but man is not.

It isn't that man has a better offer. In fact there is no other offer. It's just that we don't give much thought to cause and effect. Man acts without regard for long term consequences. And then becomes angry when someone points out that there is a causal relationship between rejecting the source of protection and inevitable disaster.

Until next time,