Comments on: Trusting God as the floodwaters rise

By: Kennethos

Kennethos — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:00:06 +0000

As a witness to the flooding and attempted saving of Winfield, Mo., last week, I can also say something about faith in Christ amidst the floods: even as people observed in the wake of Katrina, building sections of town in low-lying areas near a major river is not wise. Building a major city below sea level near a major ocean body was an exercise in gambling against the weather. The Iowa and Missouri floods were testimony that 100-year floods don’t always wait 100 years…they may come as often as ever 15 or so years. Christ will save people, but not always from their own folly and mistakes, and not from the consequences of sins.
God gives us plenty of practical, common sense wisdom in Scripture. If we ignore, or choose which parts to live by, then why do we illogically blame God for our own actions? God has graciously provided this family with several residences… perhaps they should seek to live on higher ground.

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By: Flaming Icarus

Flaming Icarus — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:45:23 +0000

I can’t help but parallel this to the Meditation on a Buddhist Chapel thread that exhalted a Personal reality over an impersonal one. Is personalising an event like this really a superior way to go?

The Personalised reality may give the Kuntz family strength to persevere (not that such strength can’t be found without faith), but it appears to do little to answer the question of why God took away their residence and their two subsequent refuges in the first place.

The Personal relationship thus seems a tad one-sided, with God doing as He pleases (as He is most entitled to do) and we humans left to ponder how to attribute events in the world, and the ways in which those events affect us personally, to God’s undisclosed plans. In the end this seems like a way to personalise all of reality by relating all events back to ourselves.

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By: SteveG

SteveG — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:28:12 +0000

I’m sure glad climate change isn’t causing more severe weather patterns than we’ve seen in the past.

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By: Chas

Chas — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:06:17 +0000

Arcadia, isn’t that what you said about Katrina. I can’t help comparing the media and political coverage of the two events.

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By: arcadia

arcadia — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:44:32 +0000

I think perhaps this god is too busy creating large scale famine, disease, death and devastation in other parts of the world to have even noticed tiny disasters like this one.

I think that anyone who would let such a mini-scale disaster involving virtually no loss of life or even horrible suffering affect their faith has precious little of it to begin with. And that what faith they have is wrapped up only in what god can do for them personally rather than what they can do to enact his wishes for humankind.

But that’s just me.

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