Tsunami: Arbitrary, Sovereign or Satanic?

As I write this post, the death toll is nearing 115,000. Millions are injured. More are homeless. The potential of more deaths because of resulting disease and lack of food and water is frightening - and staggering. This is a tragedy of global and historical proportions.

The news media is covering this tragedy with incredible superficiality. I watched the 'Primetime Live' special program last evening, as Charles Gibson added his commentary to on-site reporters, trying desperately to be profound. Personalized and individualized stories abound, with eyewitness accounts of the wave and its devastation. Stories ranged from the experiences of a swim-suit model (who happened to be vacationing in Thailand) to the fact that many animals managed to escape (as if that were some relief and helps ease the loss of tens of thousands of human lives).

The one issue of relevancy, and what gives this story (and all stories) any significance whatsoever, is God - and God has been amazingly absent in any media report that I've heard. There's the occasional shot of a saffron-robed Buddhist priest chanting over dead bodies, or the mention of Asian stoicism. However, I have not heard anybody ask what I would consider to be the important questions. How does God factor into this great tragedy? Was this an act of God? Was this an act of Satan? Was this a random act of nature that God and Satan had nothing to do with?

There are times when I wonder if the reason we don't want to factor God into tragedy is our underlying fear that God Isn?t big enough to manage the fall out. Perhaps we feel that we need to make apology for Him or that if indeed he had something to do with a tragedy, his actions are indefensible. My response to that is not one of simpleton short answers. I simply say, we think our God is too small.

That being said, I don't buy the option that neither God nor Satan had anything to do with this tragedy and that this was simply a random act of nature that defies any explanation other than a stoic acknowledgement of reality. God is the controller of the seas, as He is the creator of the seas.

Job 38:8-11
8 Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
9 when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
10 and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
11 and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?

God is ultimate in that He is in ultimate control and in that He has ultimate say. I do not believe in anything that is random - and in order to make sense of this tragedy or of any tragedy, the strong knowledge of an active, sovereign God is absolutely necessary.

Some would say - didn't Satan do this? Wouldn't he be the one ultimately responsible for such a tragedy? This poses an interesting question because Satan is a cause of much calamity in scripture. All of the children of Job were killed in some kind of natural calamity involving wind - an air tsunami, of sorts. (See Job 1:6-12, 18-19) The scripture seems to make it clear that Satan had some type of authority over elements - at least in a sense. When Jesus and his disciples faced the storm on their way to the Gadarenes, the Scripture gives a subtle, demonic quality to the tempest (See Matthew 8:23-34).

However, Satan is not sovereign. Only God is sovereign. God is ultimate. Satan is not ultimate. Thus in the end Job says, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' (Job 1:21) Thus Job did not sin in blaming God for tragedy. Yet - he counts his calamity as coming from the hand of God (Job 42:11).

God has his purposes in showing mercy and judgment. It is interesting that the Indonesian side (where the Tsunami did the most damage) is an area where many radical Islamic terrorist camps are located. It also seems that God is showing mercy to the children of suffering - in that God is working and turning even the worst of suffering and death for their ultimate good.

Creation groaned loudly this week. All of us suffer because of this cursed planet. I believe the questions we need to ask ourselves is - how can I show mercy? How can I be light and salt in times of calamity - even if the calamity is on the other side of the planet? How will I magnify Christ on this cursed and fallen world? I don't claim to make sense of it. I do claim to believe and tenaciously hold onto the wisdom and the goodness of our Almighty God.

Pray for Southeast Asia. Pray for the unreached peoples there. Pray for God's ultimate good and Kingdom Revelation.

Pray: Thy Kingdom Come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.