Crimes of Nature

"THERE IS ENOUGH LIGHT FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE TO SEE, AND ENOUGH DARKNESS FOR THOSE WITH A CONTRARY DISPOSITION"  -  Pascal in his "Pensees and Other Writings"

Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes seem to wipe out and destory the just with the unjust.  If natural disasters are "acts of God" then what is God doing?  God's goodness and fairness are often questioned when it seems like bad things happen to good people or just simply bad things happen at all. Most people would agree, "We live on a dangerous planet."  For those with a contrary disposition, say if there is a God, "God owes us an apology."

I have waited a while to write on this topic because Henryville Indiana is practically in my backyard.  In the midst of the pain and suffering and deaths by killer tornadoes, the surrounding communities are still swirling in a whirlwind of trying to rebuild and restore that which was destroyed.  Some Christian theologians and bloggers wrote during the first week while people were still burying their dead things like "God's judgment" and "God did it" for whatever reason they believed.

Isn't there still mystrey to our Christian faith today?  What special knowledge or revelation have people been given to know that God is in every detail (rather than the Devil) and God was "directly" responsible for those tornadoes?  I believe it is certainly possible to say "God did it" but how do we know in this particular instance that this was the direct hand of God?  Does not Satan take a part in the destruction of this world like sending a great wind to destroy Job's family in the Book of Job?  Has not God put into motion ways to sustain life on this planet that the earth's plates must move and therefore terrible storms and natural disasters at times do happen.

I believe at least it would be more responsible and compassionate to withhold judgement on such things than to blame every disaster on God or blame the victims of disasters like somehow they had it coming.  And does not the Bible teach us that bad things do happen to (seemingly) good people and there is not a one to one correlation between sin and suffering. 

In the gospel of John, there is a man born blind and people ask Jesus if he is blind because of his parents sin or his own sin and Jesus says neither (chapter 9).  Maybe the better question we need to ask is how well do we see or are our spiritual eyes blind?  Jesus has a way of turning our questions onto ourselves or taking our eyes off of others and rightly putting them onto ourselves.  Jesus gives two tragedies in Luke 13:1-5 when people ask the "why?" questions and turns it on them and practically says, "if you don't repent, you likewise will perish" (or something bad could happen to you also).

In a world that lays the blame card down so quickly, that wants to take up righteous causes for others while not living righteous lives themselves, God's Word calls us to humility, to repentance, to reflection, to loving and serving others, and not to just come up with nice tidy answers for difficult situations that various people face.  Maybe when we do these things, we will actually see the face of God?