Mark's Notebook


	Only a mediocre person is always at his best. - W. Somerset Maugham

At Risk In the Universe ... Always

Tech Central Station

Monday 10 January 2005, 12:49 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

By Ralph Kinney Bennett

Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me if you know all this.
-- Job 38:16-18

In Holland, on April 27, 1421, the sea submerged 72 Dutch counties, killing 100,000 people. On November 1, 1530, sea dikes burst in Holland, submerging much of the country and killing 400,000 people. In 1642 floods in China killed 300,000.

On December 30, 1703 a massive earthquake hit Tokyo, killing an estimated 200,000 people. On December 30, 1730, a quake hit Hokkaido, Japan, killing 137,000.

Between 1851 and 1866, the low area between Beijing, Shanghai and Hankow flooded repeatedly during a disastrous 15 years of storms. It is estimated that 40 to 50 million Chinese perished in these floods.

In 1887, spring rains in China caused the Yellow River to overflow, covering 50,000 square miles and killing an estimated 1.5 million people.

A drought in India in the years 1876-78 is estimated to have killed 5 million people. A drought in China over the same time period is believed to have killed between 9 and 13 million. In 1896-97 a combination of drought and plague killed 5 million in India.

In 1970, a cyclone-driven tidal wave overwhelmed the Ganges Delta in what is now Bangladesh, killing somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

"How could a merciful and loving God…?" Once again the old question springs to the lips of people trying to come to grips with some cataclysmic act of nature.

Pundits and preachers, the wise and the unwise, try to "explain" what has happened. They see the hand of God or the absence of God; the justice of God or the indifference of God.

I am saddened by the ignorance of those who say such calamities "prove there is no God." I am astonished at those who would confidently "see" God's hand in a natural disaster.

I only know that what is, is. Droughts and earthquakes and floods are physical realities of this earth, this imperfect way station for our souls on their journey into eternity. And when we react to these events with love and sacrifice and selflessness, we become gauges of God's glory, instruments of His love.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/010705A.html