GOD IN OUR DISASTERS

Unless you are connected to Haiti, as I am, you may not have paid any special attention to this past Sunday, January 12. For most of us of Haitian descent, this is a date we can never forget. It is the 15th Anniversary of the January 2010 7.3 magnitude earthquake, which, in about 35 seconds, devastated Haiti and killed thousands of people. We will never know the exact number, but it is said to be around 300 thousand, mainly in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs. The picture above on the left shows a destroyed Port-au-Prince neighborhood.
 
As I remembered this dreaded event, I was trying to get my mind around the devastation in Los Angeles, California, as various wildfires pushed by strong winds into different communities consumed everything in their paths. The number of structures destroyed is in the thousands, the number of dead, though estimated to be in a couple of dozen, is uncertain, and so is the number of missing and displaced. The picture on the right is not of the LA fires, but it is a pretty good visual of what they are like.
 
In the face of such calamitous events, our meditation question is this: Do you find yourselves asking: Where is God? Why does He allow such terrible events to occur? I will confess that even as I prayed for the people under the rubbles of their building, that somehow a trickle of life-saving fresh air would find its way to them, or that in His omnipotence, He would command the winds to cease, or the rain to come down upon the fires, I find myself asking of God: Where are you, God? How can you let this happen, God? Why God? Whether they are natural disasters or man-made disasters, I believe that nothing happens outside of the will of God.
 
Throughout the Bible, we witness many events, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, Job, the Psalms, Lamentations, Romans, etc...… etc...…that lead us to ask ourselves difficult questions such as: Is Life Fair? Is God Fair? If God Is In Control, Why Do Things Go Wrong? Why Does God Allow Innocent Children To Suffer? Does God Play Favorites? Does God Use Evil To Do Good? Does God Send Trouble? Etc… etc.. All valid questions, not necessarily easy to answer, but are good to ask: Why? Because they force us to dig deeper and deeper in the Bible, not to find answers, but to better understand who God is and to strengthen our faith.
 
The fact is that God is there in the midst of the catastrophes, be it communal or personal, just as He promised that He would. In Deuteronomy 31, verses 6 and 8, and again in Hebrews 13:5, in a somewhat different context, we find the assurance that "The Lord your God will never leave you nor forsake you." The fact is that God is fair and does not play favorites. Densely populated squalid residences in Haiti, as well as million-dollar mansions in LA, were destroyed. Though the wicked seem to go unpunished, while the righteous go unrewarded, the Bible tells us in Job 34:19 that God shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor…" God promises that no evil will go unpunished; no good act will go unrewarded. If there is anything we can count on, it's God's justice. Waiting for it to come, however, can, at times, seem unbearable.
 
Let us Pray. Lord God, we praise and glorify your Holy Name. Your faithfulness endures forever, and we thank you for your mercy and your grace. Forgive us Lord when we question what our finite minds cannot understand. Help us to trust that indeed you are a loving God, and a just God. Help us to understand that the trouble in our world and in our lives are because of humanity's sinful nature. Though we may not understand why You allow us to experience troubles, but even without answers, it is good to know, as the Psalmist says in Ps. 71:20 that "You will restore our life again; from the depth of the earth you will again bring us up." In the name of Jesus, Amen and Amen.

Written by Rev. Franck Aguilh