Catastrophe strikes and a person's world falls apart. People respond variously, but two of the more common responses are denial and despair.
Denial refuses to acknowledge the catastrophe. It shuts its eyes tight or looks the other way; it manages to act as if everything is going to be just fine; it takes refuge in distractions and lies and fantasies.
Despair is paralysed by the catastrophe and accepts it as the end of the world. It is unwilling to do anything, concluding that life for all its intents and purposes is over. Despair listlessly closes its eyes to a world in which all the colour has drained out, a world gone dead.
God works in catastrophe! Denial people refuse to see that catastrophe is in fact catastrophic. How could it be? God wouldn't let anything that bad happen to them?
Even in catastrophe, GOD IS AT WORK, sovereignly using the catastrophe. As difficult and stretching as it may be, we are able to embrace God in the worst of times.
The despair people, overwhelmed by devastation, refuse to see that life is worth living. How could it be? Everything may be lost and nothing appears worth living for anymore.
GOD IS AT WORK, even in the wreckage and rubble of life, sovereignly using the disasters in life to create new opportunities...new people.
Whether through denial or despair, God's people can emerge from catastrophe robust and whole.
(With acknowledgement: "The Message" by Eugene H. Peterson)
He (God) knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail of our lives of love for God is worked into something good.....I'm absolutely convinced that nothing.....absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love.....(Romans 8)
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