How can we determine the quality of something? We can do it only by examining or testing it. For example, if you want to judge the quality of a piece of paper, you might look at its color, feel its texture, measure its dimensions and see how easily it tears. If you wanted to evaluate an automobile you might consider how many kilometers it can go per liter of fuel, how many people can ride in it, how much luggage it can carry, how comfortable the ride is and whether it is capable of going up hills without slowing down.
We also evaluate people. For example, schools determine how much students have learned by giving them tests. However, far more important than tests of knowledge are tests of character. Usually, a person’s true character is revealed only under stress. In order to determine what someone is really like, an employer may put a potential employee in a difficult situation to see how he copes with it.
Sometimes God does the same thing. In order to reveal someone’s true character, He may put him in a stressful situation or allow him to encounter hardship. It is easy to have faith and to do what is right when everything is going well, when we enjoy our work, when our families are healthy and we have all we need. It is easy to be pleasant and polite to others when we get along together and we are enjoying life. But, tragedy, the loss of our job, sickness, lack of the necessities of life or disagreements with those around us can reveal our real character. Do we still hold on to our faith when we are in distress or pain? How do we treat others when we disagree with them or when we are suffering?
This is one reason why God allows natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes to occur. He uses them to test our character. He uses them to reveal the depth or shallowness of our faith.
This is true, not only for individuals, but for entire nations. When God delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, under the leadership of Moses, He sent them through a wilderness where they experienced a lack of food and water. Why did God rescue the people from slavery only to put them into another kind of hardship? The Bible says, “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions”” (Exodus 16:2-4 NIV)
Why would God do this? Why does He need to test anyone, much less an entire nation? He is God; He already knows what a person or a nation is. No doubt God already knows all things, but we do not. The testing is for our benefit so that we will realize our true spiritual condition.
This leads to a second reason why God allows us to experience natural catastrophes. The testing not only helps us recognize and identify our true condition, it refines us. Just as gold or silver is purified by burning away the impurities it contains, God intends trouble and calamity to burn away the impurities in our faith. It is going through trouble which reveals the flaws in our understanding and our misplaced hopes. It shows us what is important. In regard to trials, the Apostle Peter writes, “These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:7 NIV)
Everyone wants praise, glory and honor. But, in order to receive it, Peter indicates that our faith must be pure and genuine. The way our faith is refined is through trouble. The fact is that trouble comes to everyone. God’s purpose in allowing us to experience it is to refine and purify our faith. How tragic if we go through the trouble without the intended result!
Calamity not only reveals, it not only refines, it also builds character. James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:3-4 NIV)
The Apostle Paul agrees with James. He wrote, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:1-5 NIV)
So we see that calamity and suffering does not indicate that God does not love us. On the contrary, God uses the suffering and hardship of natural disasters to build those things into our lives which will draw us closer to Him. The testing of calamity and suffering develops perseverance. In turn, perseverance builds character which causes an increase in hope.
It is interesting to note that even Jesus Christ, though He was totally without sin, had to experience suffering. Trouble and suffering are the tools which God used in order to perfect Jesus for His role of bringing salvation to mankind. The Bible says, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…” (Hebrews 5:7-9 NIV)
If the sinless Jesus, who sacrificed Himself in order to save us from our sins, had to be perfected for His role through suffering, who are we to think that we can attain perfection without suffering? When a natural disaster occurs; when calamity strikes; when we go through hardship and trouble, we should thank God that He is giving us the opportunity to see ourselves as we really are, to refine our faith and to give us hope.
We can also gain comfort from the fact that Jesus suffered. It is because Jesus has suffered that He can sympathize with the trouble and suffering which we experience. Because He has experienced it, He can help us endure it and triumph over it.
When we realize that God has our good in mind when He allows us to go through pain and suffering it changes our perspective. We do not have fear when a natural disaster strikes. We do not have to live our lives in dread and uncertainty. We can even look forward to the testing of our faith in the expectation that we will become better people as a result of it.