Hurricane Melissa could be the most powerful storm ever

Some records are fun to watch, such as the Dodgers’ eighteen-inning win last night (actually early this morning) that tied for the longest game in World Series history. Others are horrific, such as the hurricane striking Jamaica today that could be the most powerful storm ever to make landfall anywhere.

Hurricane Melissa is now the strongest storm on the planet this year. The Category 5 storm is expected to devastate Jamaica, an island of more than 2.7 million people, before continuing across eastern Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas. However, a strong cold front tracking into the eastern part of the US will act as an atmospheric brick wall along our coastline, forcing the hurricane out into the Atlantic and away from us.

The fact that America will be spared the wrath of the storm may cause you to be less concerned about it. That would only make you human—our fight-or-flight instinct innately prioritizes direct threats over those more incidental to us.

However, if you had been with me on my ten trips to Cuba and met the incredible Christians I know there, you would feel differently about this story. One of their pastors is one of my dearest friends. I pray for him by name every day; he does the same for me. I love him as my brother because he truly is. I am already grieving what he and his people are facing and urge you to join me in intercession for all those being devastated by this unfolding tragedy.

Why 380 million Christians are being persecuted

Whenever stories of innocent suffering make headlines, I wonder if I should once again write on the perennial issue they raise: How can an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allow such evil to exist? Even though I have done so often in books and articles, the question persists because the issue persists.

And the closer to home it strikes, the deeper the doubts it raises.

Today, let’s take a different tack. As I noted yesterday, Halloween week seems an appropriate time to discuss Satan and his strategies. And causing innocent suffering is one of his most nefarious activities.

Jesus called him “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), one who comes “only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Note the word “only”—everything the devil does expresses one or more of these three actions.

He can cause natural disasters (cf. Job 1:12–19) and disease (Job 2:7) and inspire sinful acts against God’s people (cf. Luke 22:3–6). Because he cannot attack our Father, he attacks his children (1 Peter 5:8–9). Consequently, according to Open Doors, more than 380 million Christians are suffering persecution and discrimination around the world today. As my friend John Stonestreet notes, such persecution affects one in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia.

As you can see, much innocent suffering in the world is caused by Satan. But you may be asking: Why, then, does an omnipotent God allow the devil to act in such horrific ways?

Here’s one factor: the deeper our suffering, the greater our transformation when we trust it to our Lord.

Surviving the Bataan Death March

Our Bible study teacher last Sunday recommended Bill Keith’s Days of Anguish, Days of Hope, which tells the incredible story of Chaplain Robert Preston Taylor’s experience as a POW in World War II. Reading it was a deeply moving experience, especially since my father experienced the horrors of war in the South Pacific as well.

Rev. Taylor, with an earned doctorate from Southwestern Seminary, was an established pastor in Fort Worth, Texas, when he sensed God’s call to devote a year to military chaplaincy on behalf of American soldiers in the South Pacific.

He was serving in Manila when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They soon assaulted the Philippines as well, taking Taylor and more than twenty thousand other Americans captive. He was subjected to the Bataan Death March, three and a half years of horrific imprisonment, and unspeakable torture and deprivation. When he was finally liberated at the end of the war, he learned that his wife had thought he was dead and remarried.

Early in his captivity, Colonel Alfred Oliver, chief of the Philippine chaplains, said to Dr. Taylor and the other chaplains imprisoned with him, “Men, I want us to pray and thank God for the confidence he has placed in us by letting us be in this place at this time.” The wisdom of such confidence was soon revealed: God used them to spark a spiritual revival in their prison camp that touched thousands of lives and became known across the region. Soldiers who began the war with no spiritual interest became deeply devoted believers in the midst of their suffering.

Colonel Oliver said to his fellow prisoners,

“Men, I’ve learned never to doubt in the darkness what I believed in the light.”

Because he and his fellow chaplains experienced such deep darkness, the light of their faith was transforming for thousands. And God continued to use Dr. Taylor: he was ultimately promoted to Air Force Chief of Chaplains with the rank of Major General.

“Thank God I’m not the one in charge”

What Joseph said to his brothers, every Christian can say to Satan when he does his worst: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). The greater our suffering, the greater our impact when we trust our pain to our redeeming Lord.

The old hymn therefore rightly declares:

The powers of darkness fear,
When this sweet chant they hear,
May Jesus Christ be praised! . . .
The night becomes as day,
When from the heart we say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

I heard a song on the radio recently that makes my point in more contemporary terms. Ben Fuller and Carrie Underwood sang:

If it was up to me, there’d be no gravel roads
No wounds, no blisters on my soul
Pain might come, but it wouldn’t come for me
If it was up to me, I’d take the easy ride
But I’d miss the grace that changed my life
Thank God I’m not the one in charge of things
I’d never know how good your plans could be
If it was up to me.

What “blisters” on your “soul” will you trust to your Father’s grace today?

Quote for the day:

“Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless. It is part of the total plan of God, who has chosen to redeem the world through the pathway of suffering.” —R. C. Sproul

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