When I was in college, I served as minister of music and youth at First Baptist Church in Carbon Hill, Alabama. I have fond memories of my years there. In that church I met and married my wife, and there we dedicated our first child. It was also at that church that I had the privilege of listening to the preaching of Harlice Keown, one of the best conservative expositors of the gospel I have ever heard. He and his wife Mildred were seminary friends of my parents, and they took me into their home and treated me as if given a mandate from above.
It was toward this town and this church that a fierce tornado made its way in 1975. Based on radar data and meteorological projections, there was every indication that this deadly storm would split Carbon Hill in half. As the storm approached, Harlice Keown called several deacons to the church to pray for deliverance. Church members in their homes were asked to pray likewise. And, whether by miracle or happenstance, the twister changed its course and spared the city. I still remember the following Sunday as the pastor described what was seen on radar that night. A short distance from Carbon Hill the storm split into two pieces, and these two offspring began to separate from each other. At the very moment when that one storm would have ransacked the city, Carbon Hill residents found themselves in the safe area between the two. And all this occurred as members of that church prayed specifically for something like this to happen.
Atheists would argue that all of this was a coincidence. There exists no God, they say, to alter a tornado’s course. Deists, though professing a belief in God, would also claim that the sparing of Carbon Hill was coincidental, because they perceive God to be no longer active in the universe. Others, like Harlice Keown, would assert that it all came about because of God’s direct intention and activity. Some—and you can include me in this group—would say that it’s just impossible to know. I am not sure what happened that day. Maybe God split the tornado and spared the city. Maybe the whole thing was just a fortuitous coincidence for Carbon Hill (and a disastrous one for nearby Jasper, where one of the spin-off storms unleashed its fury). I really don’t know which is true and probably will never know. But these things I do firmly believe: (1) God has the power and sovereignty to so act in nature; (2) God sometimes does so act in nature; but (3) God usually does not so act in nature. Most of the time, as was witnessed in Piedmont and Indonesia, He does not alter nature’s laws or deflect its fury. If it is true that He did so in 1975, directing the storm away from Carbon Hill, then the residents there should be doubly thankful. They witnessed an exception to His overall pattern of dealing with such things. They were the beneficiaries of His grace.
In summary, then, suffering often comes about because of the bad choices we make. Possessing the power to coerce our behavior and remove this type of suffering, God allows it to happen anyway. Just as often, our good choices cause suffering to be borne by us. God also allows this and, as any devout Jew or Christian would tell us, even encourages it. And then there is the suffering that defies explanation, including that inflicted by natural calamity and physical disease. God certainly has the power to stop this too, and it appears that occasionally in history He has so acted. But once again the impression we get is that He is reluctant to do so. This is why we refer to what happened at the Red Sea (and possibly in Carbon Hill) as a miracle. It was something out of the ordinary. Most of the time—we all know this to be true—miracles like this do not happen.
-Dear God, You Sure Don't Act Like You're Alive (Day 35)
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