Psalm 29:6-11

“The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!” vss. 10-11

All of us are acquainted with what we have become accustomed to call “natural disasters.” These are the regularly occurring hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanoes that are a part of our human experience. We’ve learned to predict their coming, and make preparations for their regular appearances, but no matter what we do, they always leave devastation in their wake. Many have a hard time correlating such events with a benevolent God and question why God allows them to take place. The psalmist had no such questions. In his belief system they were signs of God’s presence, and they left him singing songs of praise to such an awesome God. We might not agree with the psalmist–we probably don’t connect such naturally occurring phenomena to God at all–and so we’re left to wonder. What we often don’t realize is that we live on a planet that is alive, and the creative process is continuing. All of the things we call disasters are in fact signs of life, and unless they occur, the earth would become uninhabitable. And so, like the psalmist, we just learn to live with the vagaries of nature, and see in them the living presence of the God who is. And we occasionally get smart enough not to build houses on flood plains!

Thought for the Day: How can we best deal with “natural disasters?”