God and Haiti

I'm reading my Twitter feed. I'm reading people's reactions to the Pat Robertson's comments on the earthquake in Haiti. He expressed the common belief that Haiti is a cursed nation because of a pact made with Satan. And, of course, non-Christians, nominal Christians, pseudo-Christians, and Christians alike all respond in outrage and horror at his insensitive and ignorant comments.

I've heard many people who've visited or lived in Haiti express the same idea: Haiti is a cursed nation. The nation is tragically poor. And now the entire nation has been decimated by this earthquake. Millions of people are now experiencing suffering and loss after lifetimes of frustration and indigence.

So we make an old familiar mistake: we oversimplify tragedy because we don't understand how it can fit into our Christian belief system. We contest that God is GOOD - all the time. Yet we either stifle any involvement of God in natural disasters or suggest that He is judging a nation. We've made the argument before with Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans' heyday of sinful reveling had finally angered our God to full capacity); now we make the argument with the Haiti earthquake (Voodoo and Satanic dabbling has incurred God's wrath; He will smite His enemies.)...

God's Word includes the story of Job for this very reason. We are to continue in our faith in God's goodness in spite of what seems to be God's unjust punishment. Job NEVER has any knowledge of Satan's agreement with God: yet he proves faithful in spite of his own physical, mental, and monetary deterioration. His family dies. His riches and reputation are depleted. And before he can even adjust to his new-found poverty, he becomes sick - not just sick - deathly, disgustingly, ill with disease upon disease upon disease. Then his friends do what we do now: they oversimplify tragedy. They tell Job that he is cursed by God for sins that he is committed. This is ironic only to us: we know that God is ALLOWING Job's torture...because God has esteemed him as righteous! God even SUGGESTED Job to Satan! Satan took the challenge, claiming that God's blessings had caused Job's righteousness. A simple experiment would prove that Job served God only because of those endowments.

And Job - with absolutely no Bible, no burning-bush revelations, no godly council, no support from his own wife - refused to reject his faith in God's character.

We have this story. We have the Bible in total. We have volumes of brilliant theological treatises and scores of brilliant theologians who can remind us of God's interminable goodness and grace to us. Yet we fail again and again with our ignorance about the nature of God.

And, apparently, this is a great stumbling block (or get-out-of-religion-free card) for those who have rejected God. If there is a God, then He is good. Ergo, there is no God, because bad things happen to seemingly good or innocent people. And, of course, this is another example of oversimplifying.

God has made it very clear to me today that I have a responsibility to the suffering people in Haiti. Beyond my meager donation, my biggest responsibility is prayer.

I can't fully understand the circumstances. I, like Job in the Old Testament, must come to terms with that and exhibit actual FAITH - faith that God is Who He says He is! IF somehow God is doling judgment on the poor nation of Haiti, I will pray, as Moses did on numerous occasions, that God will restrain His judgment and offer comfort and relief.

Could God judge a nation? He did. He punished His own chosen nation by allowing them to be in years of exile and harsh rule. He allowed tragedy and He is sovereign. We aren't required to understand - just believe. That's the nature of religion.