Tornadoes and God's Sovereignty

**Just a note of explanation. I sometimes publish a post and then think of something else I wanted to say. So if you notice an additional paragraph that wasn't there the first time you read, as there is in this one, that's the reason.**

I didn't have time to post yesterday. I was gone most of the day. And I have to work today at Stein Mart. So I'm limited on time this morning. But the local news coverage of many storm victims stirred up some thoughts I've been wanting to explore. I don't have a thesis I'm trying to prove. I'm just posing "food for thought" questions that I have wrestled with. And I am sharing how my perspective has changed in recent years.

We've all heard the testimonies of people who miraculously survived tragedies that others did not. A good example of this is a tornado. One house is standing. One next door is in rubble. One family thanks God for sparing them. The other not only has no home, they often have nothing but the clothes on their back. Their entire lives are gone in a split second. There are many other such events that, on the surface, make God's intervention appear random. Imagine being the person whose house is gone, next door to someone who is telling the world how God answered their prayers and left their home intact. Most do not want to believe that God "did this" to them.

We are quite comfortable giving God the credit for the rescues. But most Christians do not want to attach God's sovereignty to suffering or losses. Many of us seem uncomfortable with the notion that God "causes" anything bad to happen. He may "allow" something or choose not to intervene, but He doesn't "send" the tragedy in our lives.

I don't remember thinking very deeply about such things in the past. I also never took any of my opinions to their logical conclusions to test what I believed or to evaluate my thinking. But once I began to do this, I started to just naturally do it quite a lot.

The first time I ever thought something through in this way was as a result of a conversation I had with Danny. I was making the argument, "But they are sincere in what they believe." Danny was making the argument that salvation isn't about sincerity; it's about truth. And I was making sincerity the ultimate thing. Even if you believed false doctrine, if you were sincere, God would value/honor your sincerity. You would not be lost. That is the way I had always thought. Danny's point was that truth (especially when it comes to God) is more important than our sincerity. You could be sincerely wrong and be lost. But I couldn't see it that way.

Danny then challenged my thinking this way: "Okay, Mom, then take your opinion to its logical/ultimate conclusion. If sincerity is what matters most to God, then the men who flew their planes into the WTC are not lost. Because even though what they believed was false, they sincerely believed it and thought they were doing God's will. You cannot be more sincere than to sacrifice your own life for what you believe." I never would have thought about it in those terms. But I recognized the validity of his point.

So, I was listening to several TV interviews yesterday. One particular victim stated that there was no way they would have survived the storm had God not protected them. But people all around them, some of them also Christians, did not receive the same protection. Many people lost their lives in the same storm. And the question in my mind is: How can we make God responsible for the good outcomes and deny that He willed the bad?

If we acknowledge that God chose to spare some in that storm, how can we also maintain that the deaths were random or not under God's control? Isn't His lack of intervention just as much an expression of His sovereign will and control? Isn't it a complete contradiction to believe He is responsible for the miracles but not the suffering and loss?

I used to view pretty much everything in life as random. And every once in a while, for some reason known only to Him, God intervened or altered an outcome. Most of the time, He just allowed things to happen or take their natural course. I didn't realize this was the perspective of a deist.

I don't know if I thought He just looked away or was ambivalent toward some of His creation and more attentive to others. I don't think I thought it through at all. But the more I do ponder this and examine my belief as it lines up with scripture, I can no longer view God this way. According to the scriptures, He is not ambivalent toward us. He is not an apathetic God who just "allows" this or that to happen. He is not uninterested. That is not scriptural. He is The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End. In everything, good and bad, we are to give Him thanks. If He is the bestower of all blessings and everything good in our lives, He is also in complete control of our trials, the number of our days, our health AND our sickness, our tragedies.

If He chooses not to intervene, it is not because He is just standing back and observing, passively "allowing" something to happen to us. NO. He loves us. The deaths of His saints are precious to Him. And we have the promise that all things work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He knew us before our creation. The Bible tells us He ordained the number of our days. Even the hairs of our head are numbered. That is not the description of a God who looks away and just lets things happen randomly to His children.

I don't know how it was ever a comfort to me to believe God took such a passive role in my life. Maybe it's because we can't understand why God would choose to rescue one person and not another. So we try to find reasons and explanations. We've all heard people say that God spared them for a reason. They hadn't fulfilled their role in His plan. Well, all I'm saying is that if some are spared for a reason, then others are not spared for a reason as well. It is a great comfort to me to know that if something bad happens to me or I suffer loss, God in His sovereignty ordained it for me and will use it for my good and His glory.

If I die in a car accident tomorrow, just know that I would not have viewed it as a random event. Just as if I one day find out I have cancer, I will know God has ordained that experience for me. I know it is His will for all of us to be redeemed from this fallen, broken world into a new heaven and new earth where there is no sickness, no death and no sin. We will have glorified bodies one day. But that is not His plan for THIS world.

In THIS world, Christ told us that we will have trouble. But He has overcome the world. And through Him, we will also. Our redemption will come through suffering. Not random suffering. God ordained suffering. I believe this with all my heart. The more I am able to embrace this, the more I find myself longing for His return and for His Kingdom to come. I could not have a more blessed life than I have at this moment. God has been so merciful to me and has given me the desires of my heart in abundance. I'm not eager to leave this world. But I realize that the best life we can possibly have on earth will pale in comparison to what is waiting for us when our days under the sun are over. I want to live in anticipation of eternity with Christ, who is the author and the finisher of my faith.

The more I comprehend His direct involvement in every aspect of my life, the more I feel the assurance of His love and the future He has secured for me through faith and trust in Him. I used to think His respect for my free will was of ultimate importance to Him. But He has shown me through His Word that even my faith is His gift to me, not a reflection of my superior wisdom in choosing Him. Yes, there is a response involved in following Him. And my obedience is the evidence of my faith. But I am His through mercy and grace, not because He saw something special in me worthy of making me His choice. I will never be able to fathom His love for me. But just as I could never be ambivalent toward my child, I know that every aspect of my life is significant to my Heavenly Father. And there is no greater security in this life, despite our suffering, than knowing, in all of life's circumstances, we are being held in the palm of His hand, the hand of the One who is Sovereign over all!