“ACTS OF GOD”
222,570 deaths – Earthquake – Port au Prince, Haiti
56,000 deaths – Russian Heat Wave
172 deaths – Salang Avalanche (Afghanistan)
102 deaths – Kohistan Avalanche (Pakistan)
21,491 earthquakes
1,282 tornadoes
These numbers don’t span 10, 20 or 50 years. Just one. 2010.
“Acts of God.” This is how they are referred to by the news media, by insurance companies, by people, who use the words – knowingly and unknowingly. With an insatiable appetite for death, destruction, and worldwide calamity, it’s no wonder so many refuse to give allegiance or find faith in God.
It’s ironic, the same God who cannot be proven by science (or scientists) is the same God who most choose to attribute the cause of natural disasters, most of which can be proven and explained through science. These are the same people who – by the way – don’t find enough evidence for a Creator. Still, somehow these are acts of God. So, which is it? Is He God, or isn’t He? Does He exist, or doesn’t He?
“I just can’t understand serving a God who would allow such death and destruction…” That’s a statement that questions God’s nature…not God’s existence. Only, it’s not God’s nature. And the natural disasters are not God’s doing.
Imagine, you and your spouse become pregnant. Maybe you planned for it (maybe you didn’t), but regardless, a life initiated in the belly of your wife becomes quickly accepted, and the internal instinct of both of you immediately begins loving someone you cannot (yet) see, cannot touch, cannot hear – and at least for much of the first trimester – cannot feel. It doesn’t matter that you cannot see, hear or feel the life inside of you; the knowing that there is a life in you, which you are inherently responsible for, is enough to desire a bond for them.
From the moment you learn of the existence of the micro-sized life growing in you, many instinctual, natural, inherent, bio-behaviors kick into overdrive. The need toprotect and create a protective shield around yourself and your fetus happens in the inside of your womb just quickly as it takes over in the outside world.
For the next 9 months you will spend time planning, preparing and awaiting the welcome-home event for your baby boy…or baby girl. For those 9 months you will fantasize, pray, hope, and wish for nothing but the best of the best for the life of your child, but still, there’s a knowing on the inside of you, which is silently accepted: your baby will grow up.
From the moment he/she enters the outside world, the first reaction to life outside of the warmth and safety of a 9 month bubble-bath-womb will be met with the cool air of a hospital O.R., and more than likely the first emotional outburst will be that of crying coupled with the unrealized recognition of his/her “lungs.”
So imagine.
You joyfully endure the lengthy 9-month pregnancy. Now the baby is here. Do you suddenly switch gears, take on another persona, and become consumed with destroying your newborn’s life? Do you become demonized over time and fill up your days and nights with plots and plans of how you can torment your child, or, end the child’s existence altogether?
I know. I know what you’re thinking, because I’m a father too.
It’s ludicrous.
Sick.
Putrid.
If we can’t imagine being a father or a mother who would behave that way, why do we assign the blame to God for the bad that happens on earth?
Stop blaming God…
– When war happens
– When 241 tornadoes touch down in American over a 3-day period
– When a loved one passes away
– When a terrorist attack happens (here or abroad)
– When a fetus dies a premature birth because of the decision of one (or two)
– When someone you love loses his or her job
– When you’re suddenly plagued with illness
– When you run out of money
God is not to blame.
Before you were thought of and planned by the two people who came together on your behalf, the map of your entire life was thought out and prepared for you, by Him. And before you exited your 9-month bubble bath and inhaled your first breath, every moment of the life you thought was yours was already written in a book about you.
Every detail about you: the number of hair follicles on your body, the number of cones and spheres in your eyes, the amount of smoothness or ridges on your fingernails, the pigment of your skin, the “blemishes” and the “flaws” (as you refer to them) were all allowed by God. You have about as much control over your life as you do your birth, and as sure as you may know so many things about you – you don’t know YOU like HE does.
You can’t imagine how much you are loved, and the deepest comparison you may find in the arms of a loving spouse or the acceptance by the unconditional love of an infant, who depends on you for everything won’t even scratch the surface by comparison of the love for YOU by a gracious God.
As far as the acts of God: the creation, the creation of YOU, the warmth you feel by the embrace of a loved one, the breath you’re taking in right now, the Cross… these are just a few.
Luke 11:13