Where is God in the flood?

Is He there? And other hard questions

In Kerr County, Texas, 129 people have perished in the recent flash floods. Between 160 and 170 are considered missing, and the search continues for them, so the count of the living and the dead may still grow as time goes on. The floodwaters came with little warning just over a week ago, when the notorious Guadalupe River rose up to 26 feet in less than an hour, devastating areas along its banks. At least 27 campers at Camp Mystic, a Christian camp for girls, are among those who perished. We will have many days and months to investigate and argue the reasons for the human disaster; and the political implications when government ultimately fails in its duty to protect those who live under it. But there is now also a question, especially among those who have suffered loss, or are in the unimaginable situation where they are praying for a miracle for ones who remain missing. That question is, as it has been for all who pass through disaster, where is God?

WCK responded to the catastrophic flooding in central Texas on Friday, July 4. Raining peaked at 15 inches in some regions and impacted families. WCK is on the ground to provide comforting meals and support the communities' need for food and water. World Central Kitchen, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

We call things like flash floods “acts of God.” They are events over which we mortals have no control, like a random bolt of lightning striking a person, or a meteorite falling through the atmosphere after traveling for millions of years through the vacuum of space, hitting some soul in the head and killing them. Hurricanes, floods, and other larger events are also sometimes unpredictable, but on that scale, there does tend to be more opportunity to warn and protect. In the case of the Kerr County flood, things could have been much worse: at least 800 were rescued, and thousands were able to evacuate themselves. Does God choose who lives, who is saved, and who dies?

It’s a hard question, and one that strikes at the very heart of mortality and faith. We all will die one day, it is a certainty. I know that many Christians believe that they may be the generation who sees the coming of the Lord, the return of Christ, and therefore they will not die but be with Him, as the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. All who have believed those verses and have gone on to die may have held fast to it, but the Bible says we do not know the day or the hour of Christ’s return.

Christian faith requires Christians to cede their lives to God, who is ultimately in authority. Jesus told his disciples, when he sent them out “like sheep among wolves,” not to be afraid of “those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28.) Who lives and who dies, and by what manner, or when, is not in our authority as humans. We can only take lives; we cannot grant those who are dead their lives to return. But Jesus, with his miracle of raising Lazarus, proved he indeed could do what only God has the authority to do. In fact, this is the sole charge the Sanhedrin had against Jesus in his trial, that he claimed to be God and claimed God’s authority. (Of course, had the Pharisees not held to their own ego and realized that Jesus was indeed God by exercising God’s authority, things would have gone differently.)

Knowing God has the ultimate authority and control over who lives and dies offers some level of balm, but does not heal the awful sting of losing a loved one to an “act of God.” The question always haunts: why? Or for those who lived, survivor’s guilt is a thing. Why did one live, to go on, and another perish in the same moment?

I think one of the answers lies not with our relationship with God, which is a matter of faith, and lies inscrutable in a soul and spirit, but it lies with our relationship with each other. The reason many have lived is that they were saved, rescued, found, protected by their neighbors, and those who risked their own lives for the sake of others.

Were it not for the heroic efforts of some (and yes, even the warnings sent by the National Weather Service), many more would have died. The floodwaters surging over the banks of the Guadalupe River did not distinguish saved from perishing. This was not a plague, like the angel of death sent to kill the firstborn of the Egyptians so that the Hebrews would be freed from bondage. It was a natural event, not a supernatural event. Natural events are not set in motion by some unexplained, spiritual cause. That’s gnosticism, or New Age garbage, like saying the positions of the planets, or the reading of the stars, caused a hurricane.

We also should not say, as people of faith, that God sends natural disasters as punishment for particular people, or a particular sin. The punishment for sin is death, and we are all consigned to die. God doesn’t need to hasten death by sending widespread disaster, claiming the innocent with the guilty. The Gospel says we are all guilty, apart from the redeeming, justifying, saving power of Christ. It’s who is saved, not who perishes for sin, that is the message of the Gospel. Anyone who claims differently, that floods, or hurricanes, is some punishment dispatched by God in response to some sin or cultural defect, is selling something that didn’t come from Heaven. God does not condemn (Romans 8:1); the devil condemns and accuses.

Let me focus on some of the heroes and those who God used to save many from sudden and terrible death in Kerr County. You know, in the military, generally it is illegal to order men or women to perform suicide missions. It is neither grand nor glorious to be ordered to die in battle with no hope of survival. Therefore, all services have strong protections against commanders ordering suicide missions. Except one.

The United States Coast Guard’s motto is Semper Paratus, which means “always ready.” In a natural disaster, the enemy is not other soldiers or sailors, or ships or submarines, or drug runners; it is the elements, and sometimes the elements make situations where it would be suicide to race to rescue others. But that’s what the Coast Guard does.

Coast Guard rescue swimmers in particular know that every mission could be a one-way trip. Scott Ruskan is a rescue swimmer out of Corpus Christi, Texas. He hopped on a helicopter at 7 a.m. on July 4, headed for Camp Mystic, where 750 girls were in mortal danger. After a six-hour harrowing flight in awful weather conditions, Ruskan and his crew joined others, including Army National Guard, in the rescue efforts. He chose to remain on the ground, which freed two seats on the helicopter for those being rescued. He is credited with saving 165 people at Camp Mystic, the New York Times reported.

Ruskan is among hundreds who responded, and like others in the military or first responder community, was trained to perform rescues—it is their job. But there are thousands of others who aren’t paid to rescue people, who have shown up in Texas, because they care about others.

The United Cajun Navy was founded in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, and coordinates disaster and recovery efforts all over the country. They remain on the ground in North Carolina to help rebuild homes destroyed in Hurricane Helene’s wake. The Cajun Navy is also on the ground in Kerr County. They are joined by an army of relief organizations and volunteers, backed by a large logistics train, and funded by regular people like you and me.

Convoy of Hope is in Texas, distributing food, water, supplies and cleaning kits to those who have been affected by the floods. Convoy of Hope is a faith-based organization that provides disaster assistance around the world. Down the street from me, and within a stone’s throw of the giant North Point Community Church campus, the North American Missions Board, a ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention, works with local churches to distribute aid and urgent help. NAMB was on the ground within 48 hours of the flood.

King David wrote in Psalm 43, about Israel, that the Lord said:

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.

This promise is from God. Not that the waters and the rivers won’t rise, but that God will be with us when they do.

The Bible is not silent on the Earth’s fate. Read Revelation chapter 6, about the pale horse, sword, famine, and plague. Then there’s the great earthquake, the sun turning black and the moon red, indicating a terrible contamination of the upper atmosphere blocking sunlight. And the stars in the sky falling to earth, the heavens receding like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island being removed from its place. This could easily describe the unthinkable: general nuclear war.

In Revelation chapter 8, the “trumpet judgements” describe global death on a giant scale—a third of fresh water poisoned, mass death of sea life, and major disruption of global shipping. This could be due to changes in weather patterns. It gets worse in Chapter 9, “during those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.”

There will be nobody to save those who perish in the times written of by the apostle John. God will not restrain the evil of wicked people at that time. But now, while we are here in the time of God’s grace and mercy, armies of helpers show up to rescue others—strangers treated as neighbors—from certain death and destruction.

Jesus was asked which commandments are the greatest in the Law in Matthew 22:36. He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” Then he continued, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

When people fail to obey the first and greatest commandment, they are not restrained from breaking the second. The people who show up at great personal cost, funded by people who give charitably, supported by communities of faith and brotherhood, are obeying the second commandment out of their fealty to the first. When few are devoted to God, few are devoted to service to others. It’s possible to (and we do) pay our heroes to protect us and rescue us from disasters, but without the volunteers, many more would suffer.

In prayer about the floods in Texas and those affected by it, this response entered my thoughts. I believe this to be an answer from God to me, but as the scriptures say, line this up against the Word of God and your own discernment as a Christian. I prayed about sharing this while so many are grieving and waiting for news about their missing loved ones. Ultimately I decided to put it in here, as someone reading this may find it is for them.

In a bit of background, in 1994, tropical storm Alberto dropped six inches of rain on north Georgia, and stalled there while the Flint and Ocmulgee rivers rose above flood stage. The Ocmulgee in Macon rose one foot per hour, cresting at 34.5 feet, which is nearly double flood stage of 17 feet. This happened on July 6, nearly 31 years to the day before the Texas floods. I was there, working at Robins AFB, and active in two emergency response volunteer organizations, Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), and the Civil Air Patrol. The Georgia adjutant issued CAP members who volunteered to join with the Georgia Army National Guard to conduct air missions in support of flood relief. I participated in those missions, and saw the devastation with my own eyes. I have some experience of what people on the ground are dealing with in Kerr County.

This is what I heard in prayer on the Texas floods:

God’s business is in the supernatural, the spiritual, and His creation’s relationship with Him, and with our neighbors. He sends his spirit like a flood, like in Joel 2:28, pouring it out on all people. When the flood of God’s spirit hits, many will not be prepared, and their faith will fail, as they drown in the intensity of His truth.

When an individual church enters into the flood, hundreds, sometimes thousands, needy, in their sin, in their troubles, will fill sanctuaries, lobbies, parking lots, in tents, standing under the hot sun and in rain, in darkness, and in storm. Instead of one morning a week, the congregation will be asked and expected to show up every day, to tend to the new people drawn to God’s spirit, healing, and love.

Many in the congregation will justify their own lives over the call of God to their neighbor. They’ll come up with reasons to tend to their own affairs, while others will follow the Lord’s call. Marriages will dissolve and break. Fathers and daughters will strain relations. Business opportunities will be passed over.

When the flood comes, we will not have warning of when it will happen. We have our warning now to be prepared.

When the flood comes, it may rise over a hundred churches, over a thousand. It may rise over a whole nation thirsty for answers and for healing. It may rise in a way that is unexpected, that we have not seen before. It may rise among the young, or the old. It may rise against our own plans, or our wishes, or our earthly concerns. It may rise against our comfort, our measures of success. It may rise against ourselves and our lives as we abandon those things of earth for the treasure of heaven.

When the flood comes, the measure of all we hold dear will be pinned against the measure of the cross. Will we go or will we drown?

In my life as a Christian, I have seen people who were instrumental to my finding faith turn in their lives as Christians in exchange for other things. I’ve seen faith fail. I’ve seen backsliding, including my own. I’ve seen backsliding without repentance, leading to spiritual deadness and seared consciences. I’ve seen what the lure of the affairs of this life does to the call of God in a person.

I’ve also seen, in the floods, and hurricanes, and relief efforts around the world, how people can rise above their own need for comfort, and their own plans and money, families, and business, to become relief for strangers in need. Some of those people who rise are not overly religious, or even Christian in their religious beliefs. Some of them have doctrines and understandings that would frighten me in a strictly scriptural sense. But they share the Spirit of God in that they sacrifice to help their neighbor, and if done in genuine love, they are a reflection of Christ.

As I wrote above, natural disasters and woes will only increase as the earth moves closer to the end of this age and the coming of the times prophesied in Revelation. God’s does not promise that these things would decrease, but that He would be with us in them.

Where is God in the flood and in the disaster? Look into the face of the volunteers who show up. Look into the face of the rescue swimmer who saved 165 campers and staff. Look into the faces of the relief workers and those who pack food for the hungry. There you will see the face of God.

It will not always be this way. Everything that can be shaken, will be shaken. But for now, we know He is here because they are there.