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The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 7 Issue: 5 - Wednesday, January 05, 2005--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where Was God When the Waves Hit?
The already mind-numbing horror of the tsunami catastrophe in Asia was compounded (I wouldn't have thought it possible) by allegations that some of the kids orphaned by the wave are being sold into slavery for sexual exploitation.
The issue was first raised after a young Swedish boy who survived the wall of water was later reportedly kidnapped from a Thai hospital. As it turned out, the boy was neither kidnapped nor treated in hospital.
Sadly, it seems likely that, like his mother, the killer wave took him out to sea. The confusion arose over the fact that the Thai doctor who reported the child missing couldn't tell one European kid from another.
Can't really blame him, there. I'd have just as much trouble telling two Thai kids apart, but it did get everybody's attention.
A text message that appeared on a cell phone of a UNICEF worker in nearby Malaysia offered three hundred orphans for 'adoption' -- no papers required.
"Three hundred orphans aged 3-10 years from Aceh for adoption," read the message. "All paperwork will be taken care of. No fee. Please state age and sex of child required."
About 35,000 Aceh children lost either one or both parents to the killer waves on Dec. 26, making them prime targets for those who supply children to south Asia's burgeoning brothels.
Thailand has long been a paradise for perverts, and Indonesia has a number of well-entrenched child-trafficking gangs who make a living out of kidnapping them and selling them as either forced-laborers or sex slaves to neighboring Singapore, Thailand and Maylaysia.
Assessment:
It is hard to imagine anyone so utterly merciless as to steal an orphaned child from a catastrophe like the tsumani to sell as a slave. It shrivels the soul to contemplate it.
But, according to UNICEF, such behavior is common, both in wars and in natural disasters. It appears that 'acts of God' bring out the devil in some human beings, just as it triggers mercy, compassion and generosity in the rest of us.
I note that people don't blame just ANY god for natural disasters. Nobody is shaking their fists at the Incan gods, or Vishnu, or Buddha or Allah.
(Although one Saudi cleric pronounced the tsunami a judgment from Allah on Christians who went to Thailand for 'immoral reasons'.)
And even though Allah evidently killed 100,000 Muslims to get the 5000 or so foreigners ('Christians), nobody is shaking their fist at HIM, either.
Instead, it is only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Creator God of the Jews, learned of and spread throughout the world by Christians that gets the blame.
Natural disasters like this always prompt the God-haters to bait His people with questions like, "How can a merciful God do all this?" -- a question that usually has us tugging at our shirt collars while we stammer some cliche like; "The Lord works in mysterious ways" -- a distinctly unsatisfying answer to both parties.
But since the questioner doesn't believe in God anyway, it isn't a real question. It is a taunt to make you question your own faith.
The unbeliever wants to be comfortable in his unbelief, and disasters like this one, especially considering the fate of many of those orphans, affords them that comfort by trying to steal YOURS.
If God doesn't exist, (as the unbelievers argue), then what is the question, again?
On the other hand, if God DOES exist, what is the answer? We see all the time in the Bible that the just are made to suffer, while the unjust live and laugh in plenty, heaping ridicule on the just.
The fact is, that we are made in God's image. The unbeliever wants to recast Him in ours -- which is where the problem lies. God created us in His image because we are eternal, even as He is eternal. We were created for eternal life -- or for eternal death; but in any case, the key word here is 'eternal'.
The symbol of righteous suffering is Job, who, after losing all he had, refused to curse God and die, as his loving wife advised.
In all that transpired, he trusted the Lord. But even Job eventually asked the question, "Why me?" albeit in a roundabout way.
God answered him directly.
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7)
"Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the LORD, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further." (Job 40:2-5)
The answer to the question is that God is God, whether one believes in Him or not. For example, someone may not believe that I exist, but that doesn't mean I don't.
Or they may conclude, from my writing, that I think a certain way, even when I don't. Their belief or unbelief has no bearing on me.
I am who I am. And God is Who He is.
God is our Judge, we are not His. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
The Lord doesn't work in 'mysterious' ways; He works according to His will. He has a purpose for everything that He does. Whether we understand that purpose is irrelevant -- it is enough to know that HE does.
"So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My Mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11)
To the unbeliever, this life is all there is -- so when God takes it, it seems exceedingly cruel. But this is no more 'all there is' than the blackness of the womb is to the unborn child. The blackness of the womb is simply all it knows until it is born.
Jesus said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." (Matthew 10:29)
Oftentimes, a similar question pops up to the effect that 'a loving God would never condemn people to hell'.
God sent His own Son to die on the Cross for our sins so that we wouldn't end up in hell. If we choose to reject Him, it isn't God that is making that choice.
The fact that only the Creator God of heaven and earth gets blamed for catastrophes like the Asian tsunami is because, whether the skeptic wants to admit it or not, he DOES believe in God. EVERYBODY does, according to Scripture.
"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:" writes Paul in Romans 1:20.
James writes, "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19) (Satan believes in God, but he isn't going to heaven)
Why does God let bad things happen? Maybe so people WILL ask the question, "Where was God when all this happened?"
So that we can tell them He is still on His Throne, still intimately interested in the affairs of men, and that all we see around us is unfolding as part of a Divine plan.
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell," the Lord reminds us. (Matthew 10:28)
I believe that the tsunami is part of God's Divine plan for the last days -- an event so cataclysmic that even unbelievers see it as a disaster of 'biblical proportions' that DEMANDS an explanation from God.
God isn't going to explain things to them. That's why He put us here.
Death isn't the end, it is the beginning. It is either the beginning of something unspeakably wonderful, or it is the beginning of an eternal horror beyond our ability to contemplate, but it is, nonetheless, the beginning of eternity for each of us.
God put each of us here for two reasons. The first is so that we can choose to one day enjoy fellowship with Him in eternity.
The second is to spread the Good News to the lost. Especially in times of trouble, when the lost demand an answer to the question; "Where was God in all this?"
The sudden catastrophe that swept 160,000-plus people into eternity in an instant reminds everybody, believers and unbelievers alike, that our lives are like a wisp of smoke, here one second, gone the next.
It gives one pause to ponder one's relationship with the Righteous Judge.
It is up to us to give them the only answer there is. God is where He always is. Waiting to forgive another sinner.
And at any given second, it could suddenly be too late to ask.
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