When natural calamities come with unprecedented force, which brings along with it death and widespread destruction, it is natural for the human mind to probe the reasons behind it. The rational mind tries to probe the natural factors behind it but a spiritual mind can make sense of it only with reference to spiritual activity. Silently or otherwise, the spiritual man asks, “God! Did you send this calamity on us? If yes, why?”
The Kerala floods which we all witnessed in these days is still fresh in our minds. With hundreds of lives lost, thousands of people displaced from their homes and billions of dollars lost in damages, that too in a place where Christians have a dominant presence, questions regarding God’s role in all of this is not far from the lips. I heard two Christian leaders proposing two contradicting assessments of the same situation. One said, God has sent it as a judgment upon us due to the increasing sin within the church. Therefore, we need to repent and turn to God. While another asked, how can God do this to a people who have served Him faithfully in this nation? Continue reading “God and the floods”
Last Sunday I preached from Psalm 1 and I titled the sermon, ‘The Way of the Righteous Man’. But a dominant theme within this Psalm is that ‘The Lord leads the Righteous Man on his Way’. When you look at the Psalms it is easy to admire the habits and lifestyle of the righteous man while missing the important fact that it is the Lord who leads him on his righteous path. Psalm 1 is a creative way of teaching the truth found in Phil. 2:12-13 that while we have a responsibility to work out our salvation, yet it is God who works in us to both desire it and to carry it out.