At any given moment on this planet, there are millions of people rejoicing in a flood of good fortune thinking that God is amazing in His goodness
and generosity

while in the same moment, millions of others face heartache and tragedy, wondering if God even exists.

It’s a hard truth.

One place this comes home to me is on Facebook.

A quick scroll through dozens of status updates from friends and acquaintances across the country is a walk through joyful announcements of births, engagements, wedding photos, and praises for healing interspersed with requests for emergency prayer regarding missing children, bad diagnoses, unexpected deaths, and lost jobs.

When our family became victims of the Rhode Island floods, I remember logging on to Facebook one night, exhausted from days of pumping water and coping without electricity, to read updates from others in Rhode Island praising God for dry basements and still more updates from friends in other parts of the country wishing for rain.

It can be isolating and lonely to be the one with the tragedy in the midst of others’ happiness and joy can be laced with guilt when held up against another’s sorrow.

In my last post, I wrote about how Jesus speaks to me in creation, testifying to His character through the buds on the trees and flowers on the hillside. Jesus is also the creator of tornadoes, tsunamis, lightning and thunder, driving rain, flooding riverbanks, and snows that bury entire towns. He is the author of earthquakes and volcanoes overflowing with molten lava. This part of creation also testifies about His nature.

Violent weather is a reminder of the limitations of humanity. It is a statement that no matter what is happening in our individual lives, we are part of a greater story, one that is bigger than we can ever imagine.

It’s a reminder that we are not “all that” but that God is.

It is also a statement that we control far less of our lives than we delude ourselves into thinking. We need God because we cannot protect ourselves from natural disasters. We can become students of the weather and we can even make a science of predicting it, but we can’t divert it for our convenience.

We are small.

The testimony of creation can be summed up in a childish grace I used to recite when I was a little girl, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food. Amen.”

This is the testimony of creation – God is great. God is good. Sometimes we feel His goodness, other times we are put in our place by His greatness. The rain falls on the good and on the evil because that is His pleasure until He comes again.

Job, when he endured tremendous suffering and faced his wife who urged him to curse God and die answered her this way, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” Job 2:10 NIV

When we are the ones with the status updates of tragedy or sorrow or great trouble, let it remind us that we are part of a greater story. We cannot always know what part our trouble plays but we can look at the storm clouds and know that God is great. Then, look at the rosebuds and know that God is good.

And we can hold fast until He bids the winds to quiet down and guides our ship to the safe harbor of our home with Him.

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2 Comments

The Conversation

1. diane homm says:

   April 5, 2012 at 10:23 pm

   I was thinking that very thing when I was looking through Facebook posts today. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The one thing we know whether we feel it or see it, is that our God is good. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His love and faithfulness. Thank you, friend.

   Reply
2. Edie Melson says:

   April 6, 2012 at 2:19 pm

   Lori, you are so right. I’ve been struck by the same thoughts, but didn’t care them as far. Thank you for your insight and especially for this blog. It brings so much to my life and to the lives of others!

   Reply