Natural disasters - reflections

Yet another natural disaster to strike our fragile world, leaving in its trail a body count of over 35,000 people... sometimes numbers like that do not mean anything to people like us living in "safe" Singapore (we seem to take personal peace and affluence for a given grant these days).

Well, first and foremost, a proper Christian view of these disasters would be that - these disasters are "not natural". Romans 8:20 -21 puts it: "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God". The Fall of Man has its implications, not just for ourselves, but for the entire created world.

So where is God in the midst of these all? My answer (to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer): He is There and He is Not Silent. Often, our eyes are so blinded by the phenomenon of suffering and pain that we fail to recognize the essence - and perhaps, the nobility - of human nature that such devastation produce. Yes, more than 3,000 people died on September 11 - but you know what, the firefighters who put their lives on the line to rescue several hundreds - or thousands more - you don't see such actions on Wall Street everyday. Yes, 200,000 people had their lives wiped out in an instant when the tsunami struck, but for once, I see hostile guerilla fighters putting down their guns and picking up their stretchers to tend to many thousands more... the reasons go on...

yes, we have reason to believe that "there is some good in this world, and that it is worth fighting for" (Sam, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) - we may not understand the fury of nature nor comprehend the extent of human sorrow, but yet, these events do have their significance and the value in our broken world... at the very least, they remind us of our humaneness and our duties to fellow human beings...