5. THE NASTIES OF NATURE

“Mother Nature” is a familiar phrase to most of us. Its origins lie in European history, where it was used simply as a personification of nature. Later, in Greek and Roman myth, Mother Nature was transformed into a goddess. Similar expressions are found in the Americas and in Asia.

This reference to “Mother Nature” has influenced, and perhaps sullied, our understanding of God’s sovereignty over nature. Subconsciously, we have distanced God from His creation, perhaps because we continue to struggle to reconcile a God of love with nature’s more violent expressions.

But to miss God in the natural world is to lose many expressions of His glory, to fail to see Him, and to hear His voice.

Among the most fascinating and detailed descriptions of God in nature are those found in the book of Job. Job has endured terrible experiences. He is convinced that if he could only explain things to God, the situation would be resolved. At the end of the book, after Job has repeatedly complained that God “doesn’t get it” and that he wants his day in heaven’s courts, the Almighty responds with a message for Job. The message? God not only “gets it” but He owns it! Job only needs to look at creation to remove his doubts about Who is in control of the events that take place in the natural world, including the world of men.

“Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice, to the rumbling that comes from his mouth. He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth…He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’…The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen. He loads the clouds with moisture; he scatters his lightning through them. At his direction they swirl around over the face of the whole earth to do whatever he commands them. He brings the clouds to punish people, or to water his earth and show his love.”^[1]

This last phrase is particularly significant when it comes to how we view violent expressions of nature. Clouds and rain serve more than one purpose. They can be a blessing to some and a curse to others, yet their origin is not in question.

The psalmist crafts some beautiful poetry around God’s continuing role in the created world: “He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call…He sends his commands to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down hail like pebbles. Who can withstand his icy blast. He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.”^[2]

Jeremiah rebuked Israel for creating and worshipping other gods besides Yahweh. These manmade gods had no power to send even a single drop of rain to the earth. He writes: “But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.”^[3]

As you read these verses and consider their meaning, is there anything that needs to change when it comes to your view of things like weather and seasons?

What He sends, He may also choose to withhold to accomplish His purposes. Amos 4:7, 8 describes it this way, “I have withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me.”

We don’t always see nature as a means by which God calls us back to Himself. Yet the created world reminds us of who He is, what He has done, how much He loves us, and gently (or not so gently) rebukes us for wandering away from Him. We ignore nature, complain about it, use it beyond what is necessary to meet our basic needs, and abuse it “just because.” We consider ourselves superior to it, even though the destiny of our mortal bodies is to return to the dust of the very earth from which we came. We seldom, if ever, think of the natural world as the voice of God, which continues to speak to us today.

At the same time as I was editing this study, I happened to be reading A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine. I was fascinated by his perspective on creation and on how God speaks through it. Tozer’s little book is well worth reading. I include just a few thoughts from his sixth chapter, The Speaking Voice.

God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is, by His nature, continuously articulate. He fills the world with His speaking voice…that Voice which antedates the Bible by uncounted centuries, that Voice which has not been silent since the dawn of creation, but is sounding still throughout the full far reaches of the universe…When God spoke out of heaven to our Lord, self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes, saying, ‘It thundered’ (John 12:29). This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the root of modern science. In the living, breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful for any mind to understand. The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls on his knees and whispers, ‘God.’ The man of earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things…Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore.^[4]

Tozer argues that we put boundaries around our relationship with God by limiting His voice to only the written Word when we should also be listening to His voice everywhere in the natural world. This aligns with Paul’s words that even those who have never seen a Bible, or heard about Jesus, are still without excuse because God still speaks and reveals Himself, through His creation.^[5]

Forces of nature are often portrayed in Scripture as instruments God uses to bring judgment. Numbers 11:1 is a solemn reminder. “Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down.”

It may be that not all the people complained, but the fire of the Lord may have affected even those not numbered among the offenders. Matthew 5:45 reminds us that the innocent suffer consequences brought on by the guilty, while the guilty enjoy the blessings showered on the innocent. “…He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Nature, as an instrument of God’s judgment, is often described in the messages delivered by the prophets to unrepentant nations. For example, Amos 5:7-9 foretells what happens to those who pervert justice and give preference to unrighteousness. “There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground. He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight to dawn and darkens day into night, who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land—the Lord is his name. With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold and brings the fortified city to ruin.”

Though we might not like what it says, the Scriptures are clear. God uses the created world as an instrument of judgment. He holds absolute control over creation at all times. For example, in Isaiah 45:6, 7 we are told, “I am the Lord, and there is no other, I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.”

Comment on the following verses. What do they say about God, His creation, and how this relates to you.

Matthew 6:28-30

Psalm 74:16, 17

Job 38:34-38

Joshua 10:12-14

He commands. He controls. He cares for all His creation.

In God’s conversation with Moses at the foot of the burning bush, we discover something else about God. He accepts responsibility for disabilities. This has led some to reject Him, to blame Him, and to refuse to believe that such acts are possible on the part of a loving and sovereign God. But the Scriptures cannot be denied.

Consider the following example from Exodus. After escaping with his life, Moses was unwilling to return to Egypt as God’s ambassador. He had failed miserably in rescuing his people and paid for his mistakes. He’d spent forty years in the solitude of the desert, minding sheep—and his own business! When God appeared to give him his marching orders to return to Egypt to rescue the Hebrews, Moses offered several excuses, trying to persuade God that he was unsuitable for the task. He was unsuitable, and that was the point! Moses claimed he wasn’t much of a public speaker, being neither eloquent nor quick at repartee. The Lord answered him by saying: “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”^[6]

We baulk at the thought that a God of love would do these things. But Jehovah accepts responsibility for those who are deaf, mute, and blind. Surely there must be another explanation. How could we trust Him under these circumstances? Jesus enlightens us, inviting us to believe that disabilities are divine opportunities. In John 9, we read of an encounter between Jesus and the disciples and a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples assumed this disability was the result of some sin committed by the man or his parents. That would have been a common conclusion in that day. After all, blindness is bad, isn’t it? Jesus’ answer to their question about who had sinned must have stunned them. The Lord tells them, “‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”

How can the works of God be displayed through illnesses and disabilities?

Hopefully, we don’t attribute all illness or disability to some sin. In some cases, it could be true. In a general sense illness and disabilities are a consequence of living in a world tainted by sin, part of the decaying process that began when Adam and Eve first sinned. But when it comes to specific people suffering specific illnesses or disabilities, we have no business making judgment calls about why God has brought these challenges into these particular lives.

Still, we have a hard time accepting that illness or disability may be part of God’s plan for our lives, a vehicle through which He will demonstrate His glory. We often pray to be relieved of those illnesses and disabilities, rarely considering their divine purpose. When we don’t see a purpose (or don’t want to), we rail against God for not delivering us or for allowing us to be afflicted in the first place. Worse yet, we attribute what God has sent to the work of Satan. We do a “Job,” demanding the opportunity to explain why we shouldn’t be going through this experience because we don’t deserve it. We don’t know or understand what God is up to. God asks us to believe that He is in control and to trust Him to use His power for our good and His glory in every situation.

I am constantly reminded of this adage, attributed to the great missionary statesman Hudson Taylor, “…Christ is either Lord of all or He is not Lord at all!”

There were consequences for the natural world because of man’s fall from grace, as described in Genesis. But a day is coming when the damage caused by rebellion against God will be reversed. Just as believers wait for the time when sin is banished forever and the goodness of Eden is restored, creation waits for that same renewal. As we and the world around us suffer together, we are reminded of the words of Paul in Romans 8:18-23, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.”

We wait together for the ultimate redemption. We wait for the time when all who will be saved are. We wait for the Lord’s return to restore Eden to what it was before that first sin was committed. We may never understand the purposes of the God who has willed the afflictions of body and mind and who uses His creation in ways we struggle to understand. But we do know that, if nothing else, these sufferings remind us that our pilgrimage here is of short duration and that full redemption is coming, when all these will be things of the past, forgotten in the light of His glory and the perfection of heaven.

In the meantime, we trust. Just a few verses after the ones quoted above from Romans 8, Paul reminds us that God continues to work out His plan in us despite the all-too-real consequences of living in a broken world. That plan is clearly stated in Romans 8:28, 29: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…to be conformed to the image of his Son.” As this transformation into Christlikeness unfolds in our lives, we and others can see the works of God displayed in our lives.

It is critical for us to understand the initial phrase in Paul’s statement. When he says “all” things, he means the good, the “bad,” and the “ugly.” We need to understand that God is in control of all of them and that ultimately each one will contribute to a good result.

It might have been hard to explain this to Hannah, tormented by her husband’s other wife. Peninnah had children; Hannah did not. In a society where fertility was critical, being barren was shameful. Hannah would have felt that shame even without Peninnah’s taunting. Hannah did not know why “…the Lord had closed her womb”^[7] And God didn’t explain.

But Hannah’s timing was not God’s. The right time for Samuel’s birth had not yet arrived. The conditions in Israel’s worship and the failures of her spiritual leadership had not yet reached the point where Samuel, whom Hannah would dedicate to the service of the Lord, needed to be in place. She didn’t know God’s plan. What was going on in heaven had not been revealed to her. Somehow, after Hannah had visited Shiloh and prayed there, she went home with a greater level of trust in God’s plan than she had before.

Timing is always critical in God’s story as it is recorded through the ages. Samson^[8] was born to a supposedly infertile woman. John the Baptist^[9] was born to a supposedly infertile woman. Both women had to wait until the time was perfect for both of these sons to fulfill the roles that God had designed for them at a specific point in history.

We understand that this was also true at the time of Jesus' birth. The timing had to be perfect: the conditions and the right political and religious players in place to allow the events that would bring about our salvation. Galatians 4:4, 5 says, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

There is another interesting episode described for us in Genesis 29:31. Jacob had two wives. His first, Leah, was not his choice. Rachel, Leah’s younger sister, was. It was obvious which of Jacob’s wives was his favourite. God responded to Leah’s rejection by her husband by giving her what He had withheld from her sister. “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.” Obviously, not loving Leah didn’t stop Jacob from having relations with her. That in itself was callous. She was a woman used, not cared for. So God showed His care for her by giving her children, someone to love and someone who would love her back. This was not a rejection of Rachel but an act of kindness to Leah. Rachel would not have known what was going on in heaven. She may have wondered why she could not conceive, especially since, unlike her sister, she was in a loving relationship. She may not have even thought of Leah’s pregnancies as acts of a loving God showing compassion to her rejected sister. Just as we look at others and wonder why them and not us, or us and not them, we learn to trust that His will is always backed by perfect reasons.

Our inability to wait on the Lord and trust Him through the delays or denials that come our way can have disastrous repercussions. But even the repercussions are not accidents, or fate, or without reason. We see an example of this in Genesis 16.

Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren. God had promised that Abram would be the father of a great nation. But Sarai, frustrated as time passed, decided to take matters into her own hands and offered her husband her maid, Hagar. Abraham did not resist. The result was the birth of Ishmael. God blessed this son, but he was not the promised son. It would be Isaac, the miracle child born to Sarah, through whom God would form the nation designed to show His glory to other nations. God could have prevented the birth of Ishmael and all the subsequent history that has followed it up to the present. But He didn’t. There was a divine purpose in Ishmael’s birth. Augustine suggests that the two sons of Abraham were living illustrations, representatives of the two kinds of people in the world: those who live by the flesh, or unbelievers, and those who live by the Spirit, or believers.

All of these unique stories about children are special cases, but the psalmist reminds us that every child is formed and known by God. David wrote these beautiful lines in Psalm 139: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand — when I awake, I am still with you.”

During one of our group discussions on trust, I tried to get the participants to think about this phrase “How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand…” I wanted the group to calculate how many times in one lifetime God would be thinking of each of them, even if He did so only once a day. From what David implies, God thinks about each of us far more than that.

What do these images communicate to you about who, and what, you are?

Look at what David says about God’s thoughts (or knowledge) about us. What does that mean to you?

David couldn’t possibly count (and neither can we) the number of times God thought of him. It was enough for him to know that he was always on the mind of the Almighty.

God formed us in our mothers’ wombs. He is the One who decided our gender, the colour of our skin, our height, the shade of our eyes, the size of our ears, and the challenges our lives would bring. This should inspire in us a confidence that the One who numbers our days will also give or withhold whatever is or isn’t good for us. He has a vested interest!

In the midst of trouble, affliction, and grief, we need to understand how much God loves us—something that often eludes us in dark times. Lamentations 3:22-33 (written out of the pain Jeremiah felt because of the destruction of Jerusalem and the decimation of the nation) says: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him’…Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. For no one is cast off by the Lord for ever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.”

Do you see the attitude displayed here? Jeremiah encourages his audience to let happen what God has ordained, without fuss, supported by the assurance that God will show compassion because of the great love He has for all that are His.

Tucked away in these verses are principles to practice in the midst of those circumstances when we wonder what God is up to, or whether He really does have everything under control. Can you identify some of these principles?

None of this means we should not pray to be healed, rescued from a difficult circumstance, or spared the violence of nature. But it does mean that what we ask for, we ask with trusting hearts. We ask, willing to let God do what is best for us, even if that means not being healed, rescued, or spared.

Another prophet familiar with adversity was Habakkuk. He spends much of his brief book complaining to God about the situation he had been called to address as God’s messenger. He wanted God to “fix it,” and God delayed. In the end, the prophet reaches this wonderful conclusion—one we would do well to imitate.

“Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the sheepfold and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.”^[10]

^[1] Job 37:2, 3, 6, 10-13

^[2] Psalm 147:8, 9, 15-18

^[3] Jeremiah 10:12, 13

^[4] A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Camp Hill, Penn, Wing Spread Publishers, 1982, p 69, 71, 73

^[5] Romans 1:20

^[6] Exodus 4:11

^[7] 1 Samuel 1:5

^[8] Judges 13:3

^[9] Luke 1:13

^[10] Habakkuk 3:17-19