Acts of God?

Thursday, 17th January 2008

A couple of days back, I mentioned having finished reading the book of Job and that I would be sharing some reflections on it.

Job is not commonly-read, probably because of the unpleasant things that happened to the subject of the book. But the truth of the matter is that it has a happy ending -- God more than restored him in terms of his family and possessions.

And even though the book is not often referred to or quoted from, one verse that I remember quite distinctly especially during funerals is Job 1:21 "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away". Another verse frequently quoted by Christians who face trials is Job 13:15 "Even He slay me, I will hope in Him."

When Job said those words, he did not realise it was actually the devil behind his misfortune, and not the Lord. Thus, he can be excused for his misunderstanding of our God. We, on the other hand, have the benefit of reading the conversation that took place between God and the devil, and hence should know better than to erroneously attribute to God what were actually the works of the evil one.

Jesus came to reveal the nature of God and He said those who had seen Him had seen the Father (Jn 14:9). While hear on earth, He went about healing and restoring. Jesus also said that it is the devil who comes to kill, steal and destroy while He came to give us life in abundance (Jn 10:10).

Hence, those who are now saying that God takes away or that God slays us are indirectly implying that the life-giver and the life-destroyer have swapped places!

If one were to pick up an insurance policy, one may find sections that expressedly exclude liability in the event of catastrophies such as flood, earthquakes, tsunamis etc, or what the insurer terms "acts of God".

We can probably forgive them for not referring to such events as "acts of the devil". But we as believers should be very clear about what should be attributable to God and what should be attributable to the devil. Amen?