Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida late today, striking the Tampa Bay area. The National Hurricane Center warned, “Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.” According to the Associated Press, “The ferocious storm could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St. Petersburg.” This area is especially vulnerable to storm surges due to its shallow waters. The storm is putting a population of more than 5.9 million people at risk.
The Challenge of Compassion Fatigue
I am writing today about Hurricane Milton with more personal engagement than I did when Hurricane Helene struck a few days ago (see my website article, God and Hurricane Helene: Thinking biblically about natural disasters). This is despite the fact that Helene wrought terrible devastation across a much larger area than is likely with Milton as it marches across the Florida peninsula and out into the Atlantic.
I feel the same intensity when I respond to news about Israel’s ongoing war with enemies that seek its destruction. This is despite the fact that the death toll from this conflict is lower than the casualty count from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The reason in both cases is the same: people I love are personally affected by Hurricane Milton and the war in the Middle East. I have family members in Florida; some of my best friends in the world live in Israel.
It is human nature to respond to the cacophony of each day’s news by filtering it through the prism of our personal interests and relationships. We cannot care as fully for people we don’t know as for people we do. In a digital world where we see more news than ever before, compassion fatigue is a daily challenge.
The good news is that God does not face this challenge.
We have grappled this week with the perennial question: How can an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allow the enormous suffering we face in this world he made? Today, let’s turn the question around by asking: What practical difference does it make in our hardest days that our God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful?
Let’s take each divine attribute in turn.
God Is All-Knowing
The Bible teaches that God “knows everything” (1 John 3:20) and that “no creature is hidden from his sight” (Hebrews 4:13). He has numbered the hairs on your head (Matthew 10:30) and names each of the two hundred billion trillion stars in the universe (Psalm 147:4).
How does his omniscience help us in hard places?
One: God knows all that we are facing and feeling.
We might worry in the midst of crisis that we are not praying effectively, but Jesus assured us that “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). Even though pain and grief are individual and isolating, the God who lives in us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16) knows all that we know and feels all that we feel.
Two: God understands our situation far better than we do.
We look at the parade through a knothole in the fence—he views it from the parade stand. He sees the past, present, and future omnisciently. As a result, we can know that he is working with wisdom that far surpasses our own (cf. Isaiah 55:8–9).
God Is All-Loving
Scripture proclaims that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This means not just that God does loving things, as we sometimes do, or that love is God, as some might say, but that God’s very nature is love.
How does his omnibenevolence help us in hard places?
Our Father loves us this moment as much as he loves his own Son (John 17:23, 26). Our crises do not mean that he loves us less, just as our blessings do not mean that he loves us more. God loves us not because of who we are but because of who he is.
As a result, he must always act for our best. Like small children frustrated by our parents, we may not understand this fact at the time, but we can trust that it is so. Mark Twain observed that the older he grew, the smarter his father became. In the same way, we will understand God’s love in the future far better than we can in the present (1 Corinthians 13:12).
In the meantime, Jesus is holding us in his crucified hands (John 10:28). Nothing can come to us without coming through him. As St. Augustine famously noted, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
God Is All-Powerful
Jesus assured us that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). As a result, everything his omniscience knows to do and his omnibenevolence wants to do, his omnipotence can do.
- Your Father is so powerful that he transcends time. This means he has all of eternity to hear your next prayer.
- He is so powerful that he transcends space. This means he can be everywhere at the same time and thus present in your deepest pain (cf. Isaiah 43:1–3; John 11:35).
- He is so powerful that he transcends creation. This means he can heal anybody, calm any storm, and meet any need (cf. Philippians 4:13).
The one thing he will not do is violate the freedom he has given us. This is why he stands at the door of our hearts and knocks. He promises:
“If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Do you hear his voice today?
*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.
Quote for the Day:
“There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction.” —J. C. Ryle
Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Gerardo Mora/Stringer
Published Date: October 9, 2024
Jim Denison, PhD, is a cultural theologian and the founder and CEO of Denison Ministries. Denison Ministries includes DenisonForum.org, First15.org, ChristianParenting.org, and FoundationsWithJanet.org. Jim speaks biblically into significant cultural issues at Denison Forum. He is the chief author of The Daily Article and has written more than 30 books, including The Coming Tsunami, the Biblical Insight to Tough Questions series, and The Fifth Great Awakening.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
For more from the Denison Forum, please visit www.denisonforum.org.
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