Bible Reading Thoughts on the Recent Tsunami

Last night as I was reading my Bible I read the following in Proverbs:

The Lord works out everything for his
own ends--
even the wicked for a day of
disaster. (Pr 16:4).

When I read that I had one of those hmmm moments. It made me stop and think for a second. I had just recently finished my last post (see preceding blog post) so the tsunami was still fresh on my braind. I was (and am) still having some problem wrapping my brain around the whole 150,000 plus dead thing. And then I read that Proverb. I'm no biblical scholar so I could very well be totally misreading the whole thing, but it just fit and made me feel a little better for a bunch of reasons, the main one being simply some kind of good will come out of the disaster. It might not be today or tomorrow (which is what we as a we-want-it-now society are used to and expecting) but it will happen. We may not even realize it until it has already happened. The phrase "the Lord works in mysterious ways" is often thrown about (sometimes I think its used more as philosphical sauve and has little meaning) often. But as a Christian I know this to be true. He does work in mysterious ways and "'neither are your ways my ways' declares the Lord." (Is 55:8(b)).

I'm not writing here to get into the debate "why would a (supposedly) loving god allow bad things to happen to good people." ("Supposedly" is in parenthesis because that is often how the question is posed). All I can say, and this might sound like a copout to many, is this: He has a plan the tsunami was part of that plan. I don't know the mind of God, for that I'm grateful. Because as PunkIsrael, a friend of mine, wrote recently: "Just one day in God's shoes would tear me to pieces." I couldn't do it I know I couldn't.