Why Harvey?

As I write this, Hurricane Harvey is hitting Texas.  No one knows exactly how bad things are going to get, but there’s no question things are going to get bad for a lot of people.  And whenever something like this happens, a question arises.  If God is so good, and if God loves us so much, why does God allow things like destructive hurricanes?

A variation of that question that comes up in a lot of contexts, of course.  The question basically comes down to, why does God let bad things happen?  Sometimes we can explain it away by the fact that God gives us free will.  That doesn’t really work in the case of a natural disaster like a hurricane, though.  Whether you believe in climate change or not, we know hurricanes and other natural disasters have been happening for a long time, and will continue to happen for as far into the future as we can understand.

You can try to get free will involved by saying, well, people chose to live in an area where they know hurricanes can happen.  And that’s true, to an extent, but it doesn’t really explain things.  I mean, every area has something.  Whether it’s hurricanes or blizzards or tornadoes or earthquakes or droughts or floods or anything else, almost every place humans can live is subject to something.  Eden doesn’t exist any more.  So the question remains.  Why does God allow these things to happen?

We say these things are natural phenomena.  We say they are something that is inevitably going to occur because of the laws of nature.  But as Christians, we believe that God set up those laws.  Was that the only way God could’ve set things up?  Was it impossible for God to set up the world differently?  Is the only way the world can work if we have natural disasters?  That would seem to be putting an artificial limit on God.

In theology we sometimes talk about how the fall of Man, in the case of Adam and Eve, affected all of nature, not just humanity.  Eden was perfect, with no natural disasters.  But when sin entered the world, it affected nature just as much as it affected human beings, and storms and other natural phenomena that we consider bad are the result of that.  If that explanation helps you, that’s great.  But I have to admit, it really does not satisfy me.

But of course, that’s the thing.  God does not have to give an explanation that satisfies me.  God does not have to give an explanation at all.  God does not have to justify God’s actions or God’s decisions to me.  In fact, it’s pretty arrogant of me to ask God to do that.  God is God.  God is bigger and greater than anything I can ever imagine.  God does not owe me explanations for anything.  God does not owe me anything at all.  I owe God everything, including my own life.

This is where faith comes into it.  If we believe in God, then we believe that God must have had good reasons for setting up the world the way God did, even if we don’t always understand them.  And so, we continue to believe, we continue to trust, and we continue to have faith, no matter what happens.

And we do one other thing, a very important thing.  We help each other.  When a tragedy strikes, we help each other.  When something bad happens, we help each other.  When we see someone who needs someone, we help each other.  Instead of spending a lot of time asking “why”--a question we’ll never get a satisfying answer to--we should be spending our time asking “what”.  What can I do to help?  And then, we need to go out and actually do it.

That’s what I encourage you to do.  Because no matter what your situation is, there is always something you can do.  If nothing else, you can always pray.  And that may well be the most important thing we can ever do.