Our hearts go out to the people of Texas and Louisiana. The pictures continue to pour in of the horrific devastation Hurricane Harvey has unleashed. The destructive power of this storm will go on for days, even weeks and months, to come. For some, the waters will subside, and they will be able to go back to their homes and begin the process of cleaning and restoring. For others, there is no home to which they can return. They have lost everything.

How are we to understand this tragedy? More specifically, for the purpose of this blog, how does a Bible-believing Christian understand and explain such destruction? It brings to the fore the age old question of why God would allow such tragedy and destruction. It raises the question as to why God did not keep such an event from occurring. There are those who would argue that it proves one of two things: God is not powerful enough to have kept it from happening; or, if He is powerful enough, He is not a good God because He could have done something and yet refused to do it.

To answer the question, one must take a serious look at Scripture. It seems to me that we are guilty of being overly selective in choosing those passages of Scripture that fit our particular personal view of God. We tend to be drawn to those passages which relate to us the testimony of His immense love, compassion and mercy. But, we neglect to take into consideration those passages that speak of His justice and holiness. For a proper understanding of disasters such as Harvey, we need to make a quick review of the presence of evil in the world.

When God created man, He placed man in a perfect paradise, in which everything was indeed, perfect. There were no storms. According to Scripture, there was not even the slightest hint of anything that would deter man from enjoying every part of creation. It was all made by a loving God for the enjoyment of man, the crown of His creation. It was only after man decided to disobey God that the curse came upon the world. The apostle Paul says that now, the world itself groans under the curse of God, eagerly awaiting the day of redemption. Because of the curse of God that began in the Garden of Eden, the entire earth suffers, and will continue to suffer, until the time God intervenes and makes all things new again.

This is the reason for Harvey, and Katrina, and Floyd, and all the other storms which have ravaged our continent. And this doesn’t even take into consideration those which have battered the coasts of other continents. And this brings us back to where we started: is God all-good; is He all-powerful; could He have intervened and kept yet another devastating storm from causing such destruction? The answer to each of these questions is, yes.

All through the Old Testament, we have record of storms, and earthquakes, and pestilences of different kinds, which ravaged the land. To the people of Israel, these occurrences were viewed as being a direct work of God. They understood that the curse of God in the Garden was still in full force, and they acknowledged God’s activity in all events – whether they appeared to be good or bad from the human perspective.

Now, we must understand that individual storms, such as Harvey, or individual troubles, such as cancer, are all part and parcel of life lived under the curse. But this does not mean that God was upset with the people of Texas or Louisiana, but that Harvey is yet another example of the curse upon the earth. Yes, all such storms are a result of sin, but not necessarily of personal sin. As a matter of fact, Jesus Himself spoke of this very issue. There was an occasion (see Luke 13:1-5) in which He spoke of two separate events, and related them to the subject of our discussion. He told of Pilate mingling the blood of certain Galileans with blood sacrifices, and Jesus asked, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?” Jesus then went on to cite another example: “Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, to you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem?” Jesus’ point seems to be clear: it is not necessarily a result of personal sin that causes tragedy to strike, but rather to the principle of sin, which has brought God’s righteous judgment on the earth.

In the same chapter of Romans in which Paul speaks of the earth groaning under the curse, he later speaks of the amazing truth that God works in all things for the good of those who love Him. It doesn’t say that He makes everything good, but that all things can work for good. So, in all the destruction and devastation of Harvey, good will come. God will accomplish His work and the results will be amazing. But, we must look through the eyes of faith and belief, and not through the eyes of doubt and despair.

We now long for the day when all despair will be turned into joy and delight. God will bring that to pass in His appointed time. In the meantime, let’s be faithful, and trust that an all-good, all-powerful, all-loving Father in heaven always works in all things for good to those who love Him. And, it causes us to anticipate even more that coming day when all things will be made new! Even so, come Lord Jesus!