Monday, September 09, 2019
Wind and waves
Mark 4:39
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. (NIV)
The catastrophic devastation in The Bahamas, particularly the Abaco islands and Grand Bahama, is unimaginable. Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Hubert Minnis, said the storm had caused “generational devastation”.
I got out of The Bahamas hours ahead of the arrival of the record setting Hurricane Dorian. Truthfully, I was never in real danger since, by then, the models had already predicted that the storm would hit the islands in the north west, and I was in the capital Nassau on the relatively safe island of New Providence. Thank God.
The real problem starts right here though, with thank God. I am more than a little uncomfortable with this because I am taken by the suffering of those who lived through the storm and wonder if they could say, thank God. I am uncomfortable thinking that I have something to be thankful for and they don’t.
And then there are the questions that people ask about God when bad things happen. These questions are well known but let me just quote one asked in the immediate context of what Dorian did – “Woke up this morning wondering why Almighty God would allow such devastation to 20,000 humans.” The questions seem particularly troubling in light of the experiences we are seeing, hearing, and reading about.
Here are two examples, that really stand out from the others, in the context of our discussion. First, Dennis Bain, a pastor and a cab driver, lost his home, his church and his taxi to Dorian. Second, Mildred Ferguson, 84, lost everything in the storm, including the church where she was a pastor.
I am sure that these pastors were praying. I am sure many other pastors, and Christians in general, were praying. But, nevertheless, that storm came and ripped everything apart, the churches included.
This should remind us of Caribbean Storyteller Paul Keens-Douglas’ recounting the experience of Hurricane Janet in his piece titled Storm Comin’ with a refrain “Thank you Jesus for this my life.”
Hurricane Janet was the most powerful tropical cyclone of the 1955 Atlantic hurricane season and one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record. Janet was a Category 5 storm that took over 1,000 lives. On September 22 Janet passed between the islands of Grenada and Carriacou, providing the material that Keens-Douglas used decades later.
Here is what he said in Storm Comin’, “People left their houses and run to the church saying that God [is] there, but it was like God was out, the whole church fall down on them and they house stand up strong strong.”
More recently, Lovindeer, in his song Wild Gilbert, told of the experience of a Rasta man in the midst of Gilbert’s devastation in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane in 1988. The Rasta was hailing the punishment that Jah was inflicting on the wicked and then suddenly lost his own house. Lovindeer sings, “Likkle after that gilbert turn back/ Lift off di roof off a natty dread shack/ Him seh blouse and skirt Jah must a never know/ Seh I&I live right ya so”
Of course, the struggle to reconcile God’s love with destructive events is a relatively new one. In Genesis 6:17 God said to Noah, “I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.” God again, speaking through the prophet Amos said, “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” Amos 3:6 NIV
Then there is the conversation that God had with Job and said to him ““… who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!’” Job 38:8-11.
This of course leads us right back to our key verse where Jesus caused the storm’s winds and waves to be still. This act had a profound effect on the disciples as they sought to resolve, with some certainty, who Jesus is. “And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!” Mark 8:41
The fact that bad things happen does not undermine the sovereignty of God. Neither should we allow New Age reinventions of God to take over our understanding and appreciation of who God is and what he does. We also have to face the fact that when we pray and ask God to do something we do so because we believe and have the faith that He could, just like He did for those disciples. But we also believe, just as firmly, that God’s sovereign will trumps our requests.
We have the example of the Apostle Paul, who, caught in a storm, prayed and heard from God that he would live, but the storm would still take a toll and he would be shipwrecked. Acts 27.
This is tough talk for us when people are suffering, and tougher still for those who are in the midst of the suffering. But, as I have learned from grieving, knowing in the worst of times that God remains in charge is actually a good thing.
Think on these things:
- Do you know anyone who was caught in Hurricane Dorian and if so have you heard from them?
- Have you responded to any of the appeals for assistance to those in the Bahamas?
- How do disasters affect your faith?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today for quick relief for those who are still stranded in the devastated islands of The Bahamas.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex