A few weeks ago I posted on what recently happened in Haiti, but since then, the news has gone on and is now covering other stories. “Female Suicide Bomber Kills 54 in Iraq,” “China Warns US Against Dalai Lama Meeting,” “Trial Opens in Concorde Disaster,” etc.
While the world slowly forgets the disaster in Haiti, just like the world, in a few weeks forgot what happened after the Tsunami or Hurricane Katrina, people are still suffering and picking up the pieces of their lives in Haiti. Now I am glad fundraisers are still taking place and aide is still going to help relieve the disaster in Haiti, but what are we to make of all of these natural disasters?
Here is a brief quote that might shed light on that question. It is from Erwin Lutzer’s Where Was God?: Answers to Tough Questions about God and Natural Disasters
Whenever tragedy strikes we have a tendency to interpret it in light of what we believe God is trying to say. Back in 2004, some Muslims believed that Allah struck Southeast Asia with a tsunami at Christmastime because the season is so filled with immorality, abomination, alcohol, and the like. And following Katrina, some Muslims opined that Allah was heaping vengeance on the United States for the war in Iraq.
On the other hand, a Christians reporter in Israel said that he saw a parallel between the Jewish settlers being forced out of the Gaza strip and the people being forced out of New Orleans. His implication was that Katrina was a judgment from God for America’s support of Israel’s decision to vacate parts of the land in favor of the Palestinians. In a further display of supposed insight, Pat Robertson suggested that the stroke that ended Ariel Sharon’s rule in Israel was God’s judgment for having divided “God’s land.”…
Clearly, people see in natural disasters exactly what they want to see. I’m reminded of the remark, “We know that we have created God in our own image when we are convinced that He hates all the same people we do.” Disasters often become a mirror in which our own convictions and wishes are reflected.
All of this is a warning that we must be careful about what we say about such tragedies. If we say too much, we may err, thinking we can read the fine print of God’s purposes. But if we say nothing, we give the impression that there is no message we can learn from calamities.
Now none of us can control natural disasters, but we can control our response to them. Take some time to re-read the last two paragraphs of the quote and reflect on those words.