The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Today is Tuesday, September 12th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Paul Schlehlein and presented by Yamikani Katunga.
A Biblical Response to Natural Disasters
This week, two severe natural disasters struck the continent of Africa. In the northern African country of Libya, flooding caused by torrential rainstorms has claimed the lives of at least 150 people. Authorities have called Libyan cities like Derna, with a population of over 100,000 people, to be a “disaster zone”. Mudslides and continuous rainfall have plunged buildings and entire neighbourhoods underwater.
This catastrophe comes on the heels of the storm Daniel that in days prior had rushed through Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Authorities believe that perhaps thousands more are dead as a result.
Days earlier an earthquake at a magnitude of 6.8 struck Morocco and several surrounding countries, the largest earthquake in the area in decades. Some say over a century. Entire cities have been left in ruins. The final death toll is still unknown but media outlets are reporting over 2,000 killed and over 1,400 in critical condition. When the country was rocked by a more minor earthquake nearly 60 years ago, it killed over 12,000 people. Earlier this year, a tremor in Syria and Turkey with a magnitude of 7.8 killed more than 21,000 people.
How should we respond to such pain around the world? What are Christians to think about natural disasters that take so many lives? How can we comfort those who have been hurt in such catastrophes?
Perhaps more than any other writing in Scripture, the book of Job teaches us wisdom on how to address suffering biblically. Job could relate to Moroccans and Libyans who have lost loved ones in floods and earthquakes. He, too, lost family members to natural disasters. Job 1:19 says, “Behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead.” In one moment, Job’s dear children were alive and well, laughing and making merry. In another, an unexpected storm rushed through his homeland and took the lives of his sons and daughters. What can we learn from this?
First, natural disasters give Christians a unique opportunity to teach the truth. Those in the midst of suffering are unusually alert to matters of life, death, and eternal things. In his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis famously wrote these words: “God whispers to us in pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” In prosperity, it is easy to ignore God. In pain, he grabs our attention.
Because of Job’s suffering, God wrote a book that has helped millennia of pilgrims respond biblically and wisely to natural disasters and pain in their lives.
Second, natural disasters are under the sovereign control of God. The waters sweeping through the Libyan streets did not catch the Almighty by surprise. Though it may be painful to believe, God ordains all that comes to pass, even the buildings that crushed children beneath their weight in Morocco.
God gave us the book of Job to teach us this heavy truth. Job never knew about God’s conversation with Satan, that behind-the-scenes discussion between the Creator of the Universe and His rebellious creature. Satan had a hand in the disaster of Job’s family, but God was over it all. Psalm 135:6 says, “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.”
If this doctrine terrifies us (“You mean God knew about this and he still allowed it to happen?”), consider the alternative—God doesn’t know what will happen and is powerless to stop it. This is far worse.
This leads us to a third way Job helps us address suffering. Natural disasters force us to trust in a holy and good God. Job never learned why God used the storm to take away his children. Job’s wife pretended she knew. She thought God couldn’t be trusted, so she urged her husband to curse God and die. Job’s friends pretended they knew. They thought the suffering came because of Job’s sin. They were wrong. They gave their friend bad advice. Let us be quick to hear and slow to speak.
Comfort during natural disasters often does not come from why. It comes from Who. Therefore, we mustn’t seek to defend God or insist on answers. We must trust that He knows what is best. This will bring the greatest consolation.
The Heidelberg Catechism says it best. Question: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” Answer: “That I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my father in heaven.”
And that’s it for The Africa Review in Five on this Tuesday, September 12th in the year of our Lord 2023. Subscribe to the Missionary Minds podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts. I’m Yamikani Katunga. Be not weary in well-doing.