Like many Christians, I have heard all kinds of statements and questions against the existence of God. One of the most common is, “If God loves us so much, why does He allow bad things to happen?” I attempted to tackle this in a previous article for Engage, but I wanted to revisit the issue in light of the hurricanes and tropical storms of 2017.
Scripture tells us that God created the world (Genesis 1:1). He also held the sun and moon in place (Joshua 10:13), parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21), and nourished the Israelites in a desert for 40 years, among other miracles. Based on this, it should not be surprising to see Jesus controlling the weather. In fact, Mark 4:39 shows Jesus telling the wind to be still. When it obeys, a great calm follows. It was so obvious a change in weather that the disciples say to one another, “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”
When we take these things into consideration, I can understand why an unbeliever might question God’s existence following a hurricane, especially when His children (Galatians 3:26) and His houses of prayer and worship are negatively impacted by heavy winds and flooding. Still, the answer is not that difficult. It’s God’s will, and His ways are not our ways.
I know it sounds too easy, cliché, or redundant, but keep in mind that God does not owe us anything. He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). Why does He do this? Because God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, James 3:17). You might still wonder why He does what He does, but that is something we will never be able to wrap our heads around, at least not on this side of eternity. That’s because God’s ways are not our ways, and neither are His thoughts our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). We, human beings, are merely part of His creation, a creation meant for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11).
Before I go any further, I want to take a moment to say that I am not and never will be one of the people who say God made a hurricane to teach its victims a lesson. While He certainly has the right to do that, as He is God, saying that is assuming you are better than those people. You’re not. We are all sinners, and the wages of sin is death (Romans 3:23, 6:23). The good news? We have Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, who offered Himself on the cross as a way of paying for our sins through His death, burial, and resurrection. Why? Because God loves us, and God is not willing that any man or woman should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
Think about it this way. If God made everything great, and every single person on the planet was content, there would be no need for faith. Because of Adam and Eve’s sin, we are separated from God. Faith in His Son, Jesus, is what is necessary to bridge the divide and allow us a place in heaven, a place where there are no hurricanes, job losses, or the other terrible events people experience. Until then, we must find a shelter in the time of a storm. We must have faith.
John H. Yates and Ira D. Sankey sum up this thought well in Faith is the Victory:
Encamped along the hills of light,
Ye Christian soldiers, rise,
And press the battle ere the night
Shall veil the glowing skies.
Against the foe in vales below
Let all our strength be hurled;
Faith is the victory, we know,
That overcomes the world.
Faith is the victory!
Faith is the victory!
Oh, glorious victory,
That overcomes the world.
