The Storm Is from God's Hands: Contra American Deism

It is popular among Christians of every theological stripe to quote II Chronicles 7:14: "If My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." And there is good reason to quote it; it is a promise that inspires great hope.

However, verse 14 is the second part of a sentence that begins in verse 13, which I have never heard quoted: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people..." That makes most people too uncomfortable. How can God say of Himself that He is the one who sends natural catastrophes?

The answer is that most American Christians have no concept of a biblical worldview. While nearly everyone claims to believe in Jesus, American religion is actually Deism, not Christianity, as I have said before. "God" is the name we put on our religious stuff, but it has nothing to do with the rest of our lives. We talk about God when someone is extremely ill, or has died. We don't talk about God when it comes to our jobs, child-rearing, politics, our relationships with our neighbors, or natural events.

As the saying goes, God don't play that. He claims absolute control over all things, including the weather or agricultural disasters. As I write this, it has been two weeks since Hurricane Florence brought massive flooding to my home state. I deny the Deist claim that a hurricane is just a natural event. Rather, it happened according to the purposes of God, even if I don't know what those purposes are. It was a supernatural event!