Does a disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it?

No, this is not a trick question and its not even one for which we must search out an answer. In fact, it is a rhetorical question taken straight out of Amos 3. Basically, God is behind every action and event that ever has or ever will take place. The sovereignty of God can be mysterious and hard to grasp for our human minds, considering that God is without sin, stills holds men accountable for their actions and moreover, remains a loving and compassionate God. We have seen the destruction of hundreds of thousands of people in the tsunami, the endless turmoil in Iraq, and our own local tragedies and struggles. (It is a tragedy that woke me in the wee hours of the morning that turned my meditation back to these thoughts.) And I believe that our one hope, our one reason and end must be found in a reliance in the sovereignty of God. There are two reasons I'd like to outline for now why such a belief is essential.

1.) If you deny the sovereignty of God, then you cannot have a grounded faith that God will work all events out for good. Christianity is historical, and contrary to some lines of thought, is completely based upon evidences. Faith in God is faith in the evidences of the promises fulfilled and promises hoped for. People who deny that God causes all things, even the terrible, to happen have no evidence that God will in fact be able to cause events to turn out for good. If you say that God did not cause the event then you say that he did not want it to happen. (Saying the he "allowed it to happen" is a cop out. If he allowed it to happen and did not stop it, then he either wanted it to happen or was powerless to do anything about it. The latter is a dangerous, and dare I say it heretical, position.) So if God was powerless to use events leading up to a tragedy to prevent its coming to pass, then what makes you think that he is powerful enough to make it turn out right? God calmed the sea and poured down the flood all for his glorious, although sometimes hidden, purposes.

2.) Belief in the sovereignty of God opens the door of your heart for God's refining fire. A second important result of belief in the sovereignty of God is that it humbles our own hearts and puts the world into perspective. Saying that God just allowed an event to happen or that he is not finally responsible places all ultimate blame on human actions (or natural, unavoidale phenomena, like the tsunami), a position that neither Job nor the writer of Job takes. Job said, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away (1:21)," and "shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive adversity? (2:10)" The writer of Job says that Job's brothers and sisters "showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him (42:11)." Certainly the writer of Job mentions that Satan did this work, but all final responsibility is given to God who ordained that Satan be allowed a short leash in order that God might show his name to be great by his servant's rejoicing in God's sufficiency amid hardship. By placing complete blame on human or worldly elements also hardens our own hearts to see God's purposes. In the Old Testament, God used attacks and destruction from Israel's enemies as a wakeup call so that they would give up their idols and rely upon him. He had warned them by prophets, but they still would not listen until he mercifully stripped away their strongholds. Job himself, although a righteous man, finally realized his need for further refinement by God's loving and firm hand. Sometimes God takes away our comfort so that we stop relying on his gifts and start relying on him alone for our satisfaction. So we ought to be careful not to pray for justice and wrath upon our enemies too quickly, but we ought to pray for mercy for our own souls and consider what refining work God intends to do through our situation, for Israel's experience attests to the judgment that God brings when his voice is ignored.

The agony of the cross is a call to faith that God is in control of all of history and that his purposes are true and good. Likewise, its suffering is a starting point for the transformation of men's hearts to reliance upon God's provision. Let us glory in the cross and in his sovereign will.

"Friends are friends forever.."

Ha. So many cheesy memories of that song. Anyway...Kristen left today. She was here for about a week and we had all sorts of crazy good times, especially with Michelle, Emily Sawyer, the Mullers and Piko. Friends are awesome.

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!" Psalm 133:1