On Sunday, Dec. 26th the 9.0 earthquake off the western coast of Sumatra sent a devastating Tsunami that affected 11 nations. As of this moment the current death toll stands at 60,000 confirmed deaths with tens of thousands unaccounted for. The widespread damage is unparalled and the increasing death toll staggering. Reading through the various articles and pictures throughout the net, has quickly become mind numbing. What do I make of all this?!
The last great tragedy we experienced in this century alone was the unforgettable twin towers attack on Sept 11, 2001. In the latter part of this year a Russian highschool was held hostage killing over 100 students. Compared to the 60,000+ death toll of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, those events may be more palpable to our stomachs. Also the cause of these 2 events are easier for us to understand since we are more able to put a finger on the cause. However when it comes to natural disasters such as the Sumatra quake, who are we to point the finger at?
Many religious leaders attempted to answer that question when the 911 attacks occured. Evangelicals poised the possibility that God had allowed the terrorist attacks as a form of judgement on our nation… A nation that has abandoned its God in schools, homes, governments, and even churches. As you may recall, as quickly as those questions were given to the public by many religions leaders, the MSM (main stream media) quickly shifted (dismissed) America’s attention from God’s judgment to “let’s investigage the mind of a suicide bomber.”
Maybe the world’s attention is wrongly focused? Instead of focusing on God’s judgements on the world, we’ve focused on the human agents that have caused past tragedies, such as 911. However, in our world’s present tragedy, there are no human agents to blame. No human agents to rob God of our attention. I sometimes wonder if God wants our attention that he’ll purposefully remove any human instrument so as to cause people to think of no one else but Him, whether positively or negatively.
How many more disasters will we undergo, before we give Him our full attention? We’ll probably go through another cycle of having a panel of experts and evangelical religous leaders debate the cause of such catastrophic events. Possibly concluding once again that God wants our attention that He is angry and the nations that continue to reject Him and rob Him of glory fall under judgment. Unfortunately, as quickly as that charge is brought before the watching world, it will also be quickly dismissed and our attention is once again brought to seismology, geology, weather patterns, etc.. our attention on God would once again be lost until the next time.
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