The tragedy in Maui is unspeakable. Who could ever imagine being pursued by flames with almost no escape? Hellish.
At heart, I’m a Sunday School child. That’s especially true as life winds down. I want to know that God is good, but how is God good when horrific things happen? The church says, “Jesus died for your sins.” Yes, I believe that, it’s eternally important, but how does that speak to lives changed forever, homes destroyed, children traumatized? “There but for the grace of God go I”? That makes God capricious, not always loving. The Bible lessons appointed for yesterday were about nature (Job 38:4-18; Matthew 14:22-33). If your church had those lessons, were they applied to Maui, even in a few words or in prayer? An appeal to contribute to disaster relief?
There’s a crucifix hanging in our dining room. I brought it back from Israel decades ago. There is no explanation for Maui that takes away the unspeakable trauma. My thinking on all that is so wrong in our world – and I think about God-things a lot – always comes to one focus, the Man of Sorrows. “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from who men hid their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isiah 53:2-4). Relationship with Jesus. “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27).
So much talk in church doesn’t speak to me, and I hasten to say I’m a pro-church guy! When a child was scared to go to sleep in the dark, mom said, “Jesus is with you.” The young child answered, “I want Jesus with skin on.”