I rather liked this explination.
This is always the question that is asked when disaster strikes.
Where is God? Why didn’t God stop this? Why hasn’t God delivered these poor, suffering people? God must not be that “almighty” if “he” can’t stop all this suffering.
God, in my opinion, is not living up to his advertising. In a year that has witnessed the aftermath of the south Asian tsunami (approximately 225,000 deaths), Katrina (118 confirmed dead and rising), and Wednesday’s Baghdad bridge stampede (some 953 Shiite religious pilgrims dead), it has become impossible to reconcile current events with the notion of an omnipotent, omniscient, magnanimous deity. “The Almighty” appears to be either an unaware, powerless, and/or misanthropic absentee landlord — or no one whatsoever.
This view shows just how pervasive the right-wing view of the vending machine God has taken hold in our country. It’s a perversion of God’s nature.
The right wing, with its black and white answers to every question, and the ever-pervasive “prosperity gospel” that teaches people that if they do the right things (namely contributing to the purveyor of the prosperity message) God will make them rich in return, has led people to misunderstand God when disaster strikes. They believe the hype that God is this super-human in the sky who controls the weather, who controls people who fly planes into building and who controls who lives and who dies.
God doesn’t work that way.
God is not a vending machine - spitting out miracles if we put in the right kind or amount of prayer. God is not a super-human being in the sky, bigger and stronger than we are and all knowing. God is not an evil overlord in the sky, waiting with glee for just the right moment to smite the sinners and bless the saints. God is not even a benevolent, kind papa in the sky, sending waves of “lurve” to us if we’ll just meditate and think good thoughts.
According to the scriptures, God is … and that’s about all we can really say. God is unknowable. God’s ways are not our ways - God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. We think God should stop storms and prevent suffering, but that’s not on God’s agenda. That’s the human agenda and we are so quick to blame God when things don’t go our way. We stamp our feet like scorned children and tell God to go to hell.
God is not a human. True we are made in God’s image - possessing that spark of the divine that creates our better nature - but God is not us and we make a mistake when we expect God to act or think like us.
God is God - and the scriptures tell us that God is ever with us, working in and through us if we seek God’s will for our lives. When we search for God we should not search for God in the wind, the thunder or the hurricane. We only find God in that still, small voice - that voice that comforts us, that voice that guides us, that voice that assures us that no matter how tough things get or how bad things seem, there is always hope.
God has never promised us a trouble free life. Believing in God does not get one a pass on tragedy. Believing in God does not mean that we’ll be rich, thin and good looking. Believing in God simply means that against all odds, we will have hope. Believing in God means that against all odds, we will believe that things can get better. Believing in God means that we will be motivated to survive, to grow, to change things for the better - because we understand that justice - real distributive justice - only comes about when those who believe in the eternal goodness and hope of God act on our convictions and work for the betterment of every single person on the face of this earth.
Read the Psalms and understand. When people search for God they find God in the suffering. They find God in the face of hopeless situations. They find God in the depth of their hearts where their strength lies. They find God in the depth of their hearts where their hope lives. They find God in the depth of their hearts where despair is finally defeated.
If this current disaster teaches us anything it’s that we’ve forgotten where God is and how God works in our world. God works through us. God lives within each of us and if we neglect that divine spark in ourselves or anyone else, chaos follows.
Deroy Murdock concludes his article stating that “we are on our own.” It’s that kind of attitude that has brought us here. Only when we realize that we are all in it together will we understand the true nature of God. We are woven together on this earth as a fine fabric and when we truly believe that we are on our own and we don’t need each other then we destroy the fabric of life - the fabric of God. We can only understand God when we understand that we are woven together on this earth - completely dependent on one another. How we live affects one another and until we understand that interconnectedness - that utter dependence upon one another - we will forever feel angry with and forsaken by God.
If you want to rage at something, rage at the selfishness and vanity that humanity (especially Western humanity) has embraced. Rage at our insensitivity to one another. Rage at our inability to rise above our tribalism. Rage at what the human race has become by our own choices and decisions. God hasn’t put us here - we have.
God is with us. God is in the despair, in the struggle and in the suffering. God is within us all, and only when we realize that divine spark of every human being and how powerful we are when we realize and act upon our connection to everyone - only then will we truly understand the power and nature of God.
