HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THIS?

Ken Graydon

[kennygee@bigpond.com]

 

When a catastrophic natural event kills almost two hundred thousand people on one day, how do we deal with this? What can we understand or draw from this?

The tidal wave, following an undersea earthquake, that devastated parts of Asia on December 26 2004, has brought us face-to-face with the reality of a Tanakh lifestyle.

The Moslems will say “It is the will of Allah”. The Buddhist will say  “It is the law of karma”. These are not answers that will satisfy us. ETERNAL puts before us the proposition that our obedience, our observance, our repentance, affects events way beyond our lives. Life is inter-connected. The flood in Noah’s time, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the series of catastrophies that struck the Israelites on the Exodus all had much wider consequences than the punishment of certain individuals for their wrong-doing.

See the story in Numbers 21: 4-9. When the fiery serpents were sent against the Israelites, many died, then ETERNAL instructed Moses to make a metal copy of a snake. Anyone who was bitten could look upon the metal snake and be healed. Not everyone who received a snake bite was guilty! The guilt of other people had brought about the situation where punishment was necessary. What did those people, who were not guilty, think and feel when they suffered from snake bite [they are called fiery serpents!] but they could see the remedy put in place by ETERNAL. Are they thankful, repentant, ready to be obedient? What does ETERNAL ask of us? Obedience, repentance, charity and honesty. Read Isaiah chapter 58 see what ETERNAL wants from you.

 Had we done more of the things ETERNAL wants from us, would the consequences of this tidal wave been less horrific? We cannot change what has been – we can only change ourselves. Did we participate in some way because our material demands speeded up global warming causing the ice to melt and sea levels to rise? Did we demand of people in Asia that they provide buildings and facilities to enhance our life style and enjoyment so they were more exposed when the waves struck?

In 1 Kings, chapter 8 King Solomon prays at the dedication of the Temple. This chapter spells out an ETERNAL aware lifestyle. If anything is going wrong in your life, your circumstances or your world you need to go before ETERNAL in repentance. Your repentance and your renewed obedience will allow ETERNAL to heal your life and circumstances. We each have a responsibility to go before ETERNAL in prayer to ensure that, in everything we do, we are obedient and playing our part to make the world a better, safer place for all of us.