Yesterday was a tragic day in Moore, Oklahoma, a beautiful suburb of Oklahoma City. Reports last night kept moving the number of people killed from the devastating tornado higher and higher. This tornado even surpassed the May 3, 1999, tornado that killed 36 people in the same general area.

The most awful part of the tragedy concerned the 24 children killed in an elementary school. I can’t imagine the anguish and grief on the part of parents, students, and teachers.

What do we do and say in a time like this?

We obviously pray for the people who survived and especially those who have experienced such a tragic loss. Oklahoma is a wonderful state with wonderful people. I have had the opportunity to preach at their famed Falls Creek conference center. Oklahoma is home to strong churches and many faithful believers.

We also wonder why these kinds of things happen. Is this just the kind of thing that happens in a fallen world?

Anytime we experience a natural disaster I am reminded of Paul’s words that the “whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22). Like us, the “creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19) The creation and the children wait for the time when “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8: 21).

Until that time we suffer because of our rebellion.

These kinds of events occurred in the time of Jesus. People of his day assumed a cause and effect connection between sin and suffering. They looked for someone to blame. Instead of blaming someone for sin, Jesus called them to the positive (John 9:1-5). Jesus showed that God wants to redeem our suffering and cause good to come from it.

We wonder if God is trying to get our attention. He is. But not in the way we use that phrase.

God is always trying to get our attention. That’s why Jesus came to earth. That is why we have the Law and the Prophets and the rest of Scripture. God wants us to take these times of grief as natural times of looking at our needy lives. As a result, He wants us to turn from our sin and turn to Him.

In times like these, we need a Savior. We also need to turn to our loving Heavenly Father “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (1 Corinthians 1:4).

Let us now be instruments of God’s comfort.

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