I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things. Isaiah 45:7
Woke up this morning to news in Japan. The videos that played before me looked like scenes from an apocalyptic movie, yet, these were not the work of Hollywood, but real scenes affecting real people. Yet it still took me several minutes to take it in, to realize the magnitude of this earthquake, the power of water to move objects and end lives, and what these events might mean to the people experiencing this catastrophic event. I'm still a little numb, and as I consider the situation, I'm reminded that there are Christians in Japan who are confident that God is in control and then there are those who don't Christ whom I can't imagine what they are experiencing. Jerry Bridges in his book, Is God Really in Control?, explains in the chapter titled "God's Power Over Nature" that God is clearly sovereign over nature and our lives.
One night while working on this chapter, I watched the evening news on television. One of the top stories was about several powerful tornadoes that swept across central Mississippi killing seven people, injuring at least 145 more, and leaving nearly 500 families homeless. As I watched the scenes of people sifting through the rubble of what had been their homes, my heart went out to them. I thought to myself, “Some of those people undoubtedly follow Christ. What would I say to them about God’s sovereignty over nature? Do I really believe it myself at a time such as this? Wouldn’t it be easier to just accept Rabbi Kushner’s statement that it is simply an act of nature-a morally blind nature that churns along following its own laws? Why bring God into chaos and suffering such as this?”
But God brings Himself into these events. He said in Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” God Himself accepts the responsibility, so to speak, of disasters. He does more than accept the responsibility; He actually claims it. In effect, God says, “I, and I alone, have the power and authority to bring about both prosperity and disaster, both weal and woe, both good and bad.”
This is a difficult truth to accept as you watch people sift through the rubble of their homes or-more to the point-if you are the one sifting through the rubble of your home. . . . We obviously do not understand why God creates disaster, or why He brings it to one town and not to another. We recognize, too, that just as God sends His sun and rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous, so He also sends the tornado, or the hurricane, or the earthquake on both. . . . God’s sovereignty over nature does not mean that Christians never encounter the tragedies of natural disasters. Experience and observation clearly teach otherwise.
God’s sovereignty over nature does mean that, whatever we experience at the hand of the weather or forces of nature, all circumstances are under the watchful eye and sovereign control of our God.
I'm praying for those who know the Lord as well as for those who don't know Him. I'm praying that the gospel will be spread and I'm thanking the Lord, that He is in control of all things and that eternal salvation can be found Him.
Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion on Him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6:7
