Punished

The Sydney Morning Herald today includes this article about whether yesterday's tsunami in the Solomon Island's represents God's punishment for "straying from Christian ways".

I don't believe that this is the case however. Those who work regularly with children will tell you that discipline is only effective if the child knows what they are being disciplined for. Throughout the Bible, where God has used natural disaster as a means of judgment, he has accompanied it with prophetic explanation of the reasons for it - which hasn't (so far as I know) occurred in this instance.

This disaster, to me, is another instance of a world in trouble, "groaning as in the pains of childbirth" (Rom 8:22). A world where such things happen and lead to death is a world gone wrong, a world far astray from the perfect creation God had planned for us. So whilst the tsunami is not a specific judgment upon the people of the Solomons, it is in many ways an ongoing judgment upon humanity in general.

I also believe that God uses the forces of nature to remind us that he is ever present, to cause us to lift our eyes to him even if only to cry out, "Will not the Judge of all the Earth do right?" (Gen 18:25), or, "Oh that I had someone to hear me!" (Job 31:35).

Before we go asking for such things, however, we need to be prepared for God to answer as he did to Job:

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions?
Surely you know!"

- Job 38:4-5

... and again...

Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!

- Job 40:2

Check out this song by Todd Agnew:

I thought up all the question that my human mind
could bring and laid them out before the Lord
And demanded a reason for these things
I asked about inequality and about the success of evil men
But what was I to say to Him
When He answered with this question

Where were you when I split the sky and sea
Where were you when I taught the lion to roar
Where were you when I made electricity
Fall from the sky in the middle of a thunderstorm
Where were you

I had no response, I had no reply
As the One who spoke and is the Truth
opened up my eyes
I laid my time of doubt at the feet of the Infinite
But what was left for me to say
When he answered with this question

Where were you when I split the sky and sea
Where were you when I taught the lion to roar
Where were you when I made electricity
fall from the sky in the middle of a thunderstorm

Where were you when I put stars in the sky
Where were you when I taught the eagle to fly
Where were you when I made that little child look just
like her mom but she had her Daddy's eyes
Where were you

- Todd Agnew, "Where were you" from Reflection of Something