Storm surge result on the Florida Panhandle after last year's Hurricane Michael.
As Hurricane Dorian continues to pound the northern Bahama Islands unmercifully today, we continue to look for the expected turn of the storm northward which would limit the damage to all in Florida excepting the immediate coast. It's a very stressful time with many questions. How close will it come to our homes? Should we leave? If I do, will we be able to return at the all clear so as to protect our unoccupied properties from looting and other mischief? There are many more, but there is one question that is greater than all others and it is one I first asked my father at the age of six while awaiting a storm at Nags Head. Did God create the hurricane and if so why?
None of us has the answer to that question, but I think we can look at it in a way where we can take the "heat" off God as being the one who decided to send a hurricane our way. But to get to that point, we have to make some assumptions based upon our background in the word, our faith and the abilities and thinking capacity that God gave us as mortals. Also included has to be an assessment of the Evil One, the Devil, and how he plays into the picture. Again, I can't say that this assessment is accurate, but it does make sense from a spiritual perspective and it does point out how our God-given capabilities were given to us to live and work for His plan for our lives. First let's look at ourselves and then we will consider what, if any part, the Devil plays in the process.
We mortals are a creation of God, a God who created us in His image. The earliest of mankind, Adam and his wife, Eve, were given a perfect world and they were innocent. Had they followed the simple rules that God gave them to live by, their life would have been heaven on earth in Eden. The only thing they were forbidden from doing was to eat of the tree bearing forbidden fruit. They were tempted by the Devil presenting himself as a serpent who told them how special the fruit was and how it would give them knowledge of all things. Eve took the fruit and she and Adam shared it and with that step they understood right and wrong and their innocence was gone. And when God challenged them and they confessed, their perfect lives were over and they set in motion a world of humans who had to toil with pain and suffering all their days long. They had free choice, but they had to use it wisely and if not, they would suffer the results of bad choices, a situation that has continued to this day. God tests us in life and He expects us to follow His plans but He leaves it to us to make the choice. We can listen to His word both through responses to prayer and in reading the Bible, but the choice is ours.
Now couple that with the part that the Devil plays in the picture. When God banished him from heaven to live until the second coming on earth with freedom of motion as an evil spirit, He turned him loose on us. Even with the addition to our full body armor of the Holy Spirit within us, it is still our free decision to decide whether we will listen to the Spirit or to the Devil. The Devil knows that in the end, he will lie in darkness forever and his goal, realizing what will ultimately be his fate, is to take as many of us with him as he can. He is evil and selfish so he laughs at us as he thinks of all the many ways he can beguile us. He is a free roaming spirit and he looks for our weak points. If it is money, he promises riches. If it is of the flesh, he can transform himself into the most handsome of men or the most beautiful of women. You name it and he can do it and to withstand his assaults, we must have faith and we must use it to believe in something so much better, that of course being our Lord, who offers the faithful something much grander than the things about us. Only God offers eternity in a place of perfection, so grand that we can't even imagine it. So, with our free will, we must make the choice. Will we live in eternal love and prosperity or end up in perpetual darkness after satisfying our earthly desires for the short time we are on earth?
So, what does that tell us about the question posed at the start of this commentary? Did the Creator of Life also create hurricanes? My answer is a resounding no, but I add God did let them come about in nature. And while He does have the capability to move them about as He wishes, sometimes He does so and sometimes He doesn't. None of us can answer the why to that right now but if we are successful in our quest to reach heaven, the day will come when we understand. And don't forget that we have to place a significant part of the blame on ourselves, for like the little song in Sunday school so many years ago said, don't built your house on sand, build it on a foundation of rock instead. Maybe, just maybe we have to look at our own doings for the answer. Maybe we all want to live in the wrong place. Something to think about and that is the reason I brought it up in the first place. Be very careful when we try to blame God for causing something we don't even fully understand, for a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Real knowledge, knowledge that exceeds the abilities of mankind only comes from a spiritual awakening from God. That's the path to get all answers to all things including how hurricanes were created.
None of us has the answer to that question, but I think we can look at it in a way where we can take the "heat" off God as being the one who decided to send a hurricane our way. But to get to that point, we have to make some assumptions based upon our background in the word, our faith and the abilities and thinking capacity that God gave us as mortals. Also included has to be an assessment of the Evil One, the Devil, and how he plays into the picture. Again, I can't say that this assessment is accurate, but it does make sense from a spiritual perspective and it does point out how our God-given capabilities were given to us to live and work for His plan for our lives. First let's look at ourselves and then we will consider what, if any part, the Devil plays in the process.
We mortals are a creation of God, a God who created us in His image. The earliest of mankind, Adam and his wife, Eve, were given a perfect world and they were innocent. Had they followed the simple rules that God gave them to live by, their life would have been heaven on earth in Eden. The only thing they were forbidden from doing was to eat of the tree bearing forbidden fruit. They were tempted by the Devil presenting himself as a serpent who told them how special the fruit was and how it would give them knowledge of all things. Eve took the fruit and she and Adam shared it and with that step they understood right and wrong and their innocence was gone. And when God challenged them and they confessed, their perfect lives were over and they set in motion a world of humans who had to toil with pain and suffering all their days long. They had free choice, but they had to use it wisely and if not, they would suffer the results of bad choices, a situation that has continued to this day. God tests us in life and He expects us to follow His plans but He leaves it to us to make the choice. We can listen to His word both through responses to prayer and in reading the Bible, but the choice is ours.
Now couple that with the part that the Devil plays in the picture. When God banished him from heaven to live until the second coming on earth with freedom of motion as an evil spirit, He turned him loose on us. Even with the addition to our full body armor of the Holy Spirit within us, it is still our free decision to decide whether we will listen to the Spirit or to the Devil. The Devil knows that in the end, he will lie in darkness forever and his goal, realizing what will ultimately be his fate, is to take as many of us with him as he can. He is evil and selfish so he laughs at us as he thinks of all the many ways he can beguile us. He is a free roaming spirit and he looks for our weak points. If it is money, he promises riches. If it is of the flesh, he can transform himself into the most handsome of men or the most beautiful of women. You name it and he can do it and to withstand his assaults, we must have faith and we must use it to believe in something so much better, that of course being our Lord, who offers the faithful something much grander than the things about us. Only God offers eternity in a place of perfection, so grand that we can't even imagine it. So, with our free will, we must make the choice. Will we live in eternal love and prosperity or end up in perpetual darkness after satisfying our earthly desires for the short time we are on earth?
So, what does that tell us about the question posed at the start of this commentary? Did the Creator of Life also create hurricanes? My answer is a resounding no, but I add God did let them come about in nature. And while He does have the capability to move them about as He wishes, sometimes He does so and sometimes He doesn't. None of us can answer the why to that right now but if we are successful in our quest to reach heaven, the day will come when we understand. And don't forget that we have to place a significant part of the blame on ourselves, for like the little song in Sunday school so many years ago said, don't built your house on sand, build it on a foundation of rock instead. Maybe, just maybe we have to look at our own doings for the answer. Maybe we all want to live in the wrong place. Something to think about and that is the reason I brought it up in the first place. Be very careful when we try to blame God for causing something we don't even fully understand, for a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Real knowledge, knowledge that exceeds the abilities of mankind only comes from a spiritual awakening from God. That's the path to get all answers to all things including how hurricanes were created.
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