As the US digs out from back to back hurricanes, many might ask, what did Jesus say about natural disasters.
Joshua Rogers, an attorney in Washington DC, wrote an oped for Fox news asking that question.
He wrote: We’re understandably uncomfortable giving God the credit when it comes to hurricane winds crushing helpless grandmothers in their homes or floods drowning children. If the winds and waves obey Jesus, why wouldn’t he step in and help all of those in harm’s way?
Jesus taps into something that makes a lot of us uneasy. Many prefer to see him as a wise guru who preached a general message of world peace and non-judgment. But when it comes to the question of “why” with disasters, he gets to the heart of the issue and focuses on the potential disaster that threatens everyone who ever lived: the day they meet God face to face.
As C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain: If we listen to him, we will hear him shouting our names from the cross, where he went through the worst pain possible in order to bring each of us into his family.
Rogers concludes, “As we watch the footage of people fighting helplessly in the face of nature’s wrath, we should contemplate the day when we will all face God and answer for how we responded to the gift of his Son. On that day, we will only survive the storm if we have already thrown ourselves at the mercy of the only one who can provide the eternal shelter our souls need in this life and the next.