Natural Disasters

The sound of the cicadas was deafening as I walked along on a summer Sabbath morning, enjoying the breeze and collecting my thoughts after a busy and eventful week. I had so much to think about, and was trying to making sense of it from a biblical point of view. Yet, those cicadas were humming away so loudly, it was hard to concentrate.

The recent tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas caused death and terrible damage and disrupted thousands of lives. Our hearts go out to the victims of the great devastation. Already we know of 500 million dollars in property damage around Oklahoma City according to the Southwest Insurance Information Institute. And the damage is far more widespread than that coving parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Tennessee. More than 12,000 cars have become twisted wrecks and several thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed. Some suggest that there will be more than one billion dollars in damages when the effects of these tornadoes—some in excess of 300 miles per hour—is fully known. But, do we understand WHY such tragedies happen? Can we learn something from the suffering and the pain they cause? Should we blame God or Satan or random chance?

The torrent of sickening images of death and destruction in Haiti just keep on coming. Search and rescue operations have become grisly recovery operations, as the dead are removed from the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Disaster after disaster, misery heaped upon misery—drought, fires, floods, earthquakes, wars, diseases—dominate the news these days. Does it seem as if these things are growing more intense, or is it just that they are “better reported” than ever?

The age-old debate intensifies, as the “realists” disdain the “doomsayers” and the “doomsayers” point accusatory fingers at the “realists.”