On January 12th 201,  a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti.  In the week following, the media focused on the calamity, but a week later as changing news slowed down, questions started to arise, the primary one being, “Why does God allow such suffering?”

For many causes of suffering, the answer is that God allows us free will to make what choices we will and that includes choices that hurt or harm other people, and therefore most suffering that takes place on the earth is, in fact, man-made.

But moving tectonic plates and earthquakes don’t fall into the category of man-made suffering, so what is the answer? The Bible does give some indications as to causes of such things but these are probably only of interest to Christian believers or theologians. Perhaps the simplest way of putting it is to say that the Bible suggests that since the Fall, when sin entered the world, the world has not ‘worked’ properly as God originally designed it.  Things go wrong!

But does God stand back and ignore the plight of mankind? Definitely not! The Biblical picture is of a God who intervenes in His world when people cry out to Him. He is always there for people when they ask Him to be. What is frightening is that God respects our desire for freedom and therefore lets us get on with our self-focused lives, and live with the consequences of them. As we become aware of our folly, we turn back to Him and the moment we do, He is there for us. Perhaps if we lived more in harmony with God, we might receive wisdom from Him how to run nations peacefully, build buildings and infrastructures that can cope with earthquakes in earthquake zones, and be much better able to help one another when things do go wrong. These are legitimate suggestions in the light of the revelation of the Bible, but they may not find favour in those who have never taken time to check out the bible record.