“He has cast me into the mire,
and I have become like dust and ashes.”
(Job 30:19)
 
Earthquake in Pakistan. AIDS in Africa. Hurricanes and flooding in the Americas. War in the Middle East. Christians are asking - everyone is asking: what is happening here? Staff writer Barry Hall takes a look at how God, the devil, and people fit into the frightful problems of the hour.
 
I live with a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. Conflict ranges from 'he hitted me' to 'he said he was going to pee on me from under the table.' Adult's and children's relationships alike hinge on continual forgiveness in this sensitive ecosystem of life and learning. It probably sounds somewhat familiar to you, whether you have kids or not.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kate Brooks/Polaris, for The New York Times
Now - look at the picture. Really stop and see it.
 
The caption in the New York Times reads, "Zainab, who is five, has infected flesh cut from her skull in Balakot, Pakistan, where there are few medical supplies, and no anesthetic."  Five years old. Do you remember being five? She will. 
 
Zainab is one of the countless people whose lives are shattered by the recent earthquake in Pakistan. And I want to know, personally - I'm demanding to know who is going to say, "I'm sorry" to her.  As if it would even matter.
 
Natural disasters have claimed more than 45,000 lives in the last two months. The Pakistan earthquake left millions homeless. Mudslides in Guatemala have buried entire villages.
In the US, more than 463,000 households from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama contacted the Red Cross looking for assistance after being displaced by hurricane Katrina. 
 
Granted, Jesus noted that nations would war and earthquakes and famines would occur before the end would ever come (link) - meanwhile, the Bible teaches us that God works all things for the good of those who love Him (link). Somebody please tell me: what good is it to Zainab?
 
As thinking, praying christians we have to ask ourselves: what is going on in the world we live in? As servant-minded, 'hands-and-feet-of-Jesus' christians, we have the responsibility to care for the hurting and the needy. So how do we move forward from here?
 
Here is a look at four essentials to challenge us and give us perspective in the midst of, well...everything.
 

1. Who is to blame? 

I used to have insurance. One time the pipes in my attic froze, burst, and literally ruined my entire house - the insurance company paid for everything. That was a really crappy experience, but at least we knew who was to blame and how to avoid the problem in the future.
 
But who is to blame for hurricanes and earthquakes? What's to learn from what the insurance companies call 'Acts of God?'
 
God
Humanity’s tragedies serve a purpose. This we must believe, even if only to buy us some emotional time or trick ourselves into thinking that someone, hopefully God, has things under control. Which brings us to the inevitable question: is God in control of earthquakes and tsunamis? Hurricanes and floods? Could He be? Shouldn’t He be?

"The christian's problem with tragedy is this: how can natural disasters like these happen under the watch, the rule of a God who is both all-powerful and loving?"

It's an easy one for the atheist - there's no meaning, life is a total happen-stance, etc. Muslims have no problem either because, while the god of their faith is seen as all-powerful, there is no moral question to be asked after something terrible happens - it's the 'will of Allah,' and that's that. As for christians, God's love alone is no problem to us - a 'loving' God could be sad about earthquakes. But it's the juxtaposition of 'loving' and 'all-powerful' that forces us to question Him - how can He be what He is, all-powerful and good, while bodies lay lifeless in streets and cities disappear in a matter of minutes? Is anyone else upset about this?  

"We're not asking new questions here. We're not feeling new tensions either."

Take Job 7:11, for instance: “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul…”
 
Truth
The Bible has enough to say about creation spinning out of control. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God so many years ago, the effect of their choice was so vast that God’s very creation was forced out of sync with itself, evidenced by death and destruction up through this very moment. And not that men and women are the only affected ones, but everything created - from the depths of the ocean to the tallest peaks - remains frozen in a perpetual, anxious longing for the coming of the fullness of God’s Kingdom. Suddenly one can empathize with the coyote in his midnight howls.  
Romans 8:20-22
“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time…”

"Suddenly one can empathize with the coyote in his midnight howls."

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
The Devil
The devil loves to see creation fall apart. He tries to implement his darkness in our lives daily by tempting us to sin, lying to us, condemning us from accepting God's grace and accusing God and God's character to us. He lives to see anything contrary to God's Kingdom happen on earth and in our lives. Jesus alerted us to this in John chapter 10 when he spoke of the devil as a thief who seeks only to steal, kill, and destroy. Fundamentally, stealing and killing and destroying do not belong to God's Kingdom. Nor does death. 
 
It should be no surprise that our world is in bad shape after thousands of years of the devil's influence. While we wait for God's Kingdom to be fully established on earth, still the earth is subject not only to God's love but also to the effects of the devil's influence and our sinful choices (more on that later).

2. Learning from pain: challenging the comfort zone

After Katrina hit the southern US, a journalist in Texas asked a man how it felt to be a refugee. “Refugee?" he snapped, "I'm not some poor African with flies on his face! We are not ‘refugees’ - we're American citizens!"  

"Perhaps the most profound truth that human suffering awakens in us is the fact that these safe, ordered lives we think we are living do not actually exist."

 
However craftily or accidentally, we gradually cringe away from this truth into our safe, self-focused, make-believe life-boxes (prisons?). One possible benefit of disaster is this: when faced with ultimate dire need we are, hopefully, suddenly forced from our safe, make-believe lives. When disaster effects, man is a man – a teardrop is a teardrop, whether it falls on African, Asian or American soil.
 
And God is God. He wants us to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn (link), charging us that whatever we do to help someone in need, we have literally done to God Himself (link). And He gives us the hope that while we live in an in-between land, disordered and interrupted by the sin of man and the influence of the enemy, He will one day wipe away all of the tears of the world (link).
 
In that context, we are free to be as confused, hurt, and angry with God over our losses and others’ as we need to be. In fairness, though, we should also consider the miracles that God gives us – the report, for instance, issued the day following the Pakistan earthquake revealing that breast cancer patients can expect to live 20 years after being diagnosed. How many millions of lives are affected by this breakthrough - patients, husbands, children, friends...
Did we stop and say thank you? Were we too busy questioning Him about the difficult to be blessed by the good?

3. How do I pray?
We have this in common with the rest of creation: we were also created. Creation, however, does not have this in common with us: we were created human, made in the very image of God. So when God made man the keeper of all creation (link), he gave man a role and a part to play in the grand story of the history of the world. And He gave us the privilege to intercede with His very Spirit to affect that history.
A few weeks ago, for instance, 24-7 mobilized some intercessors to pray that God would somehow divert hurricane Rita from hitting the southern US coastline. Hours later the storm turned 90 degrees, causing no casualties or damage whatsoever (more on that here).
 
"This then," said Jesus, "is how you should pray…”
When Jesus instructed His disciples to pray, He spoke to them as ones whose prayers counted. Our prayers are the same today - they matter and they are powerful.  

"The prayer for God’s Kingdom to come inherently includes a cry for creation itself to be restored - for all of creation (not just people) to experience the Life and Order of the fullness of God’s Kingdom."

‘Thy Kingdom come’ is a prayer for the release of what all creation longs for, the new heaven and new earth (link), a prayer for Jesus to complete that which He began, to come once more and make all things new (link).  We have power in God to pray and to see tid-bits of His Kingdom born around us - and we have a responsibility to that blessing.  

4. Stewardship

Dignity and Choice
All serious environmentalists agree that our planet is heading for a major environmental crisis, attributed to (among other things) the effect of carbon emissions on our environment. There is hardly a decent argument against global warming any longer, the effects of which include the interruption of weather patterns and increasingly volatile storm systems.
 
And despite the facts, Hummers are still not only street-legal, but popular. I can't see how any Christian can justify driving an automobile that so drastically inefficient - 10 to 13 mpg at best.

"How can we have compassion for hurricane victims while our own automobiles are already contributing to next summer's batch of (increasingly worse) hurricanes?"

In the blame game, we can't overlook man's choice to separate himself from God - sin. Our ability to choose, the very quality that makes us human (made in the image of God), is something of a two-edged sword. It is our supreme privilege, a gracious liberty we receive, and a loud statement about the character of Jesus as the restorer of dignity to broken people. He truly does not want 'followers' or 'subjects' - He wants individuals like you and me.
 
 
 
Fair
 
Trade?
 
I fear we overlook the large-scale consequences of our choices. God wants us to make wise, holy choices, but often we exchange the blessings of our divine gift of choice in order to achieve status or pleasure. Choices, for instance, about whether to care for the earth we live on. The choice is ours to either steward or despise creation.
 
I'm not saying we should never get in an automobile. I'm just saying that God has given us the resources we require to survive, and that we should be mindful that we use those resources with wisdom and thoughtfulness.
 
What if, by living lives that treated the earth better, it was actually possible to see the peace of God’s Kingdom working to calm these storms that we see destroying human life across the globe?

"There’s no formula here, yet we can’t afford to overlook our roles in stewarding the earth over which God has given us dominion."

“Living within the planet's means need not condemn us to giving up what we now assume we need for a full life, just to sharing it,” writes BBC News’ Alex Kirby. “The challenge we face is not about feeling guilty for our consumption or virtuous for being ‘green’ - it is about the growing recognition that, as the human race, we stand or fall together.”

 
Barry Hall and his wife Charlotte moved to Chichester, England  from Kansas City, Kansas to be a part of 24-7 Prayer. They both graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Between the both of them they love hiking to the trundle, writing stationery, Widespread Panic, and our dog Bella - miss you stinky!!
Please email Barry here with feedback, questions...