I was going to write on a particular issue this week, but the devastating May 20 tornado  in Moore, Oklahoma and other places cause every other story to take a back seat.

Our hearts are broken as we hear of the loss of life, homes, schools–even whole neighborhoods– that took place in a matter of minutes.

We especially ache for the families who lost children at Plaza Towers Elementary School where many drowned or were crushed by fallen debris.

These sobering natural catastrophes cause great pain for those who experience them, but they are also used to remind all of us of a number of important truths–ones that relate to children, compassion, and our need of a Heavenly Father.

First of all, I think it’s important to remind ourselves where natural disasters originate. Should we blame God, the weather, bad luck or ourselves?  There are four possibilities or combinations to consider:

GOD

The Bible is clear that the God of the Universe uses weather and physical events on earth to reveal truth and draw people to change their lives. In the 8th century B.C., God brought a vision through the prophet Amos “two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1:1)  during the reign of King Uzziah that spoke of the land being shaken by God (8:8), houses being smashed (6:11), altars being cracked (3:14) and even the Temple at Bethel being struck and collapsing (9:1).

As Stephen Austin writes, “The prophet’s repeated contemporary references to the earthquake is why it bears his name. ‘Amos’ Earthquake’ impacted Hebrew literature immensely. After the gigantic earthquake, no Hebrew prophet could predict a divine visitation in judgment without alluding to an earthquake. Zechariah says “Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah” (Zechariah 14:5). The panic caused by Amos’ earthquake must have been the topic of legend in Jerusalem because Zechariah asked his readers to recall that terrifying event 230 years later.”

The prophets said for centuries that God used famines, natural diasasters, invading armies, and pestilence to bring people to repentance. This is why even insurance companies categorize natural disasters as “acts of God.” This is a valid, historical view. As C.S. Lewis famously stated: “Judgment is a severe form of mercy.” When we don’t listen to God in our hearts, he uses environmental means to get our attention. The goal is always repentance i.e. a changed life and hope for the future.

SATAN

The Bible also records that the devil, Lucifer or Satan, has some delegated powers to bring physical calamities upon people. This was the case of the trials of Job whom God allowed Satan to sift to prove and strengthen his faith (Job 1:12-19). In this particular story, fire, invading tribes, and violent winds were used by the enemy to test and impoverish Job.

In the end, God used Satan’s physical testings to bring Job to a renewed faith and actually expand his prosperity (42:5-10).

NATURE

We also know that we live in a fallen world where accidents, both of man and nature, happen to people in every culture. The world is no longer a Paradise, but one where “the whole creation groans and travails in childbirth” until it is set free from its fallenness (Romans 8:18-30). Thus, many of the physical disasters and calamities we face might not be the direct hand of God or Satan, but simply the fruits of a fallen and imperfect world that are allowed by the Creator.

For the next few days our eyes will be glued to our media devices as meteorologists explain to us how warm air from the Gulf of Mexico colliding with cool air from the Rockies, coupled with the power of the upper atmosphere jet stream, create the ideal circumstances in “Tornado Alley” (from Texas to Illinois), . In fact, I learned last night there are more tornadoes in this region than anywhere else on earth. That’s a fact of nature.

HUMAN SIN

A final possibility for human suffering is the curse of human sin. Notice the graphic word picture in Isaiah 24:1-6: “Look! The Lord is about to destroy the earth and make it a vast wasteland. See how he is scattering the people over the face of the earth. Priests and lay people, servants and masters, maids and mistresses, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, bankers and debtors–none will be spared…The earth dries up, the crops wither, the sky refuses to rain. The earth suffers for the sins of its people, for they have twisted the instructions of God, violated his laws, and broken his everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth and its people. And those who live in it are guilty.”

This possiblity involves God but stresses man’s part in the curse of creation. None of this scenario is God’s fault. It’s the direct result of man’s sin.

So when a natural disaster strikes us, all four of these causes should be considered. We should ask ourselves a number of important questions:

1. Is God trying to get our attention for some reason and what should be our response? It was encouraging last night to hear governors, mayors, first responders, and reporters all say with conviction that “our thoughts and prayers”  are with the people of Oklahoma. When many residents were interviewed, they also invoked the need for prayer and for God.

That’s a good sign. Prayer means we need and believe in God. Maybe God does use certain calamities to wake us up from our busy lives and remind us of our need for relationship with Him.

2. Does this storm or disaster have some Satanic origins and what can we do about them? This spiritual reality is harder to discern, but it’s certainly biblical and real. Maybe the peoples of “Tornado Alley” or the “Hurricane Region” or those living on the earthquake fault lines of the west coast need to press into God to do spiritual warfare against an unseen enemy that can use weather patterns to destroy. How can we “watch and pray” to stop Satan’s attacks and get closer to our Protector and Savior?

3. What should we do in a fallen world to limit nature’s upheavals? Should we build our homes, schools and businesses in a different manner, or avoid living in some areas that are prone to tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding or earthquakes? This has been done in some parts of the world which is one reason there are less casualties in places where the infrastructure is more reinforced and prepared. How should they rebuild Moore, Oklahoma to be as prepared as possible for future storms?

4. What is God trying to say to us about our sins or separation from Him? This should really be the first question we attempt to answer after a natural disaster. Are we in right relationship to God? Have we been trying to live without him and become self-sufficient in ourselves?

I am always sobered when human disasters lead to increased prayer, humble hearts, seasons of repentance and people turning to the Lord. In the greater scheme of things, this is the most lasting and powerful fruit–for people to meet God through trials and tribulations. Their eternity depends on that encounter.

And “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

Especially when he calls through the pain of disaster.

There are a couple of other reminders that emerge from the Oklahoma Twisters.

First, children are very special to us and to God. As we watched the news last night, the greatest expressions of grief and concern came over the loss of the children–especially graphic and haunting at the Plaza Towers Elementary School. Of course, all the devastation was heart-wrenching. But nothing was more grievous than children dying.

The same could be said of the Newtown, Connecticut massacre. We were deeply impacted because children died. Why does the death of children touch our hearts so? Because children are so young, vulnerable, and  innocent, with their whole lives before them. We hate to see them suffer or have their lives snuffed out early–as we should. 

But this should be another wake-up call to to us and should have been learned from the recently-completed Gosnell Murder Trial where a gruesome abortionist was exposed and convicted of his evil practices. His recent case and others have shed increasing light on the real evil of abortion.

But, wait America. It’s not just the grisly details of Dr. Gosnell snipping spinal cords of born babies that should move us to revulsion and concern. In the womb, many of us are still killing the same innocent. vulnerable children! There’s no difference between us and him–just more exposure in his case.

May God use both natural disasters and human atrocities to bring us to a love of all children who so beautifully reveal to us the character of  God.

And finally, may the flood of relief services as seen through both government aid and especially the tireless humanitarian efforts of the Body of Christ, remind us that the God of the Universe is deeply compassionate and desires to save us.

Thousands of years ago, Job renewed his trust in God through a whirlwind (Job 38:1). in 2013, may we all find God in the Tornado.

The highly combustible Benghazi hearings which started today have rightly focused Americans on the importance of international events.

Last week I attended an international conference in Panama with three hundred leaders from South, Central and North America. It included a delightful trip along the Panama Canal, one of the wonders of the world–where we marveled at the sight of huge container ships that brought five million dollars a day into the Panamanian economy and also at the lush tropical paradise which included crocodiles, monkeys, iguanas and toucans.

But the most instructive moment for me was a dinner conversation I shared with a long-time friend from Argentina who is both an attorney and highly influential political leader in that nation. What he told me about Jimmy Carter taught me a lesson on the importance of fairness.

First of all, I must confess that I am generally not a fan of our 39th president who was the leader of the free world from 1977-81.

James Earl Carter burst onto the political scene in the mid-seventies after a naval career which included expertise in nuclear physics on submarines and managing the family peanut farm in Plains, Georgia. He served two terms in the Georgia Senate, then became governor of the state as a launching pad for a run to the White House.

When I first heard about his presidential aspirations, I was encouraged that a man who said he was born again” was seeking the highest office in the land. But the more I studied his worldview and policies, I concluded that though he might be Christian in heart, it didn’t translate to his mind where public policies would be created.

How did I come to this conclusion? I was writing my first book in 1976 and decided to contrast the policy positions of Gerald Ford the current post-Watergate president with Ronald Reagan his primary challenger and Jimmy Carter who won the Democratic nomination.

Before the age of computers and e-mail, I wrote all three campaign headquarters asking for quotes from the three men on thirty areas of American public policy. I then compiled the quotes which were first of all published during the summer of 1976 in an Intercessors for America newsletter so that the Body of Christ could be aware of who they were voting for.

Thus, the first “presidential scorecard” was born.

At the end of the summer, I turned my findings into a small book which came our just before the national elections in October 1976. The book was called What About Jimmy Carter? According to many, I was the first Christian leader to raise questions about the worldview of  our 39th president.

The rest is history. Carter’s administration was characterized by “malaise” from the very beginning–a micro-management incompetence that hurt the America economy, caused large gas lines, made America look weak around the world (remember the botched attempt to free the hostages in Iran?), and led to a Reagan landslide in 1980.

Since that time, Jimmy Carter has been labeled one of the worst or most ineffective presidents of the 20th century.

So, for much of my life, I have shared that view and am known for it because I was the first to say so in print.

Now back to my Argentine friend. We were having a meal at a beautiful marina restaurant along the shores of the Panama Canal. Ships were passing by, the air was warm and humid, and I was excited about dining with my friend whom I had not seen in twenty years. During that time he had been very engaged in politics and renewal in his home nation including his law practice, a national television program, and close involvement with some prominent Argentine political leaders.

After catching up on the past decades, my friend turned to me and asked me an intriguing question:

“Ron – who do you think is the most respected US president in Latin America?”

I wasn’t sure, though my thoughts turned to Reagan, Clinton, and others. I even entertained the notion of George W. Bush who got the largest support of Latin voters for a Republican in recent memory.

Then my friend gave the shocking answer: “The most admired president by far in most of Latin America is Jimmy Carter.”

That sentence was hard to process. Jimmy Carter? The bungling technocrat who was the brunt mostly of jokes in the USA (except for his good work with Habitat for Humanity since leaving office). I could hardly believe what he was saying but was determined to hear him out.

My friend went on to explain that it was Jimmy Carter during the 1970s who championed human rights around the world and those ideas took route in Latin America. He shared how his own nation was deeply changed by Carter’s influence and cast off a cruel dictatorship as a result of his leadership. The same thing happened in Chile, Brazil and a number of Latin nations.

Over the course of an hour, my friend systematically presented the evidence (that’s what lawyers do) that Jimmy Carter’s human rights bully pulpit was the largest contributing factor to the liberation of the Southern Hemisphere. At the same time the sleepy Catholic continent was becoming largely evangelical and Pentecostal, Carter helped break the chains of political tyranny leading to free governments being born for the first time. These two developments were the main causes of Latin’s Americas surge in prosperity and global influence.

He also went on to say that Ronald Reagan was the second most admired president because he also championed human rights and expanded the view of freedom that Jimmy Carter began.

So I asked my friend, “So does that make Reagan more respected than Carter” (I was still hanging on to my bias). “No.” he replied. “Carter is the most respected president because his human rights vision began our pathway to freedom.”

Our meal ended and I felt a little convicted. I had been a merciless critic of Jimmy Carter for years, and now I had been presented evidence that God truly used him to help liberate the Hispanic world. I’ve always believed and taught that truth is based on evidence. So I needed to be fair, to re-evaluate my position, and learn from this new set of facts.

If you have a USA-centered view of life, it’s easy to view James Earl Carter as a presidential failure. He didn’t do much to help America; The economy got worse; He was a poor manager with a whiny personality; He was liberal on social issues and weak on foreign policy.

But Jimmy Carter, according to many Latin Americans, is the man that God used to free 400 million people from the clutches of political darkness.

If that’s true, he needs to be given credit for that blessing–and I, among others, must be fair to his legacy. It’s fine to criticize the poor economic policies or inept management style. But it’s also right to give him kudos for helping to liberate a continent.

No small feat indeed!

Dr. Martin Luther King once said:  “There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

At the heart of this quote is the importance of humility when both viewing ourselves and the accomplishments of others.

Later in the week I was commissioned at a conference into a new leadership role. After the ceremony, a woman handed me a note which she said was an impression God had given her to share with me.

The note simply read, “Openness.” I got the point.

We must be humble and “open” to arrive at the truth about people and situations. Through my Argentinian friend and then my note passer, I learned a good lesson in Panama: God is just–he is fair. He does not go to extremes to label people or fail to note their positive qualities. I need to do the same. In our polarized world, it is important to not be narrow in sizing up people and situations. We need to see and applaud the good and speak up against the bad.

This may be one reason why Bill O’Reilly is the most trusted man on television.. He works very hard at collecting facts and attempting to be fair with political figures of all stripes. I don’t always agree with him, but his intentional desire to treat different points of view fairly is a good example.

His network–Fox News–tries to live up to the same standard with its motto: “Fair and balanced.” Maybe that’s why it is the most watched network in America today.

How about you? Are you fair when it comes to speaking about political leaders? Do you have the humility to lift up their strengths while criticizing their weaknesses? Or is it easy to whitewash everything because of bias or lack of facts?

On my trip to Panama I read a book (which shall be the subject of a future column) that shares a similar idea.

Dr. Mary Neal says, “Interpreting something that happens as being inherently “good” or “bad” is entirely a matter of perspective. Do “bad things happen to good people?” I’m not sure. Jesus was certainly a very “good” man. His crucifixion would certainly be interpreted by many as a “bad” thing. His disciples were devastated, yet the Old Testament prophecies would not have been fulfilled and a new covenant with God would not exist if Jesus had not been crucified.”

“From this perspective, it is difficult to declare that the crucifixion of Jesus was a “bad” thing. In fact, it is the very heart of the “good news” that Christians celebrate.”

I was quick to label Jimmy Carter as “bad.” But in Latin America, he is viewed as very “good.”

To be fair and just, there must be humility, honesty, and the pursuit of truth in our hearts to give credit where credit is due and warning where it is also necessary.

Gracias, mi amigo. I commit to greater fairness in all that I say and do.