Is there a God?

It has now been six weeks since the Boxing Day Tsunami - the most recent death toll is stated at 295,000 with a massive 250,000 reported dead or missing from Indonesia alone. Though it feels like such a long time ago, I wanted to go back and write some thoughts about the event.

The tsunami and the grave destruction that was brought down on evoked a lot of different emotions in people. Some people felt sadness and despair as they saw the destruction or lossed loved ones; in some it evoked a feeling of compassion as they dug deep in their pockets to contribute to these people who had lost so much. Personally, I felt a bit numb - that same feeling I had after the 9/11 attacks - an emotional void ... weird ...

For others it brought a sense of anger - a feeling of why has this happened - a sense of hopelessness at the atrocities in the world. What i found interesting was this article that ran in the SMH and reprinted on Mockkie - it echoed a common thought - that if bad things like this were allowed to happen then there must not be a god.

Not being one that has had to deal with real loss it's difficult for me to know what I would think when it feels like the world is crashing down. Would I too begin to doubt God? Would my faith stand the tests of the most troubling times also?

I hope my faith would survive. I am convinced that there is a God out there - one of my favourite movies of all time is Boyz N the Hood - in that Doughboy (aka Ice Cube) says "Is there a God? Sure, I mean how can u have the stars the moon and all that" before debating "why niggaz be killing niggaz" ... point is there is no way that the world and all the complexities of human life can be attributed back to such a random event as the big band. No way.

In regards to the tsunami and why God would let that happen - I know that God has a plan for everyone and controls everything in this world. It's not like he just stood aside and watched what was happening. Everything that happens here is meant to happen, not everything is good though. Sometimes bad things do happen for a reason - losing tickets to Black Eyed Peas wasn't great, but it taught me to be more careful with my possessions. Failures and losses are very instructive.

And finally, how are we as humans, supposed to understand the complexity of God - let alone challenge what he does? Remember, God did destroy the world before (only allowing Noah to survive) - I'm sure he probably wasn't too popular that time either!