Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. Haggai 1:10
This is God’s word to his people through Haggai and God clearly states, it is “because of you (God’s people)” that the land has dried up.
It’s easy for us as Christians to blame government policies, moral laxity, or the public’s unbelief in God for drought, bushfires, tsunamis, viruses and other natural disasters. I even read that a prominent Christian speaker was blaming the bushfires on the government policy to legalise abortion.
We like to have tragedies explained. Then we feel we have some control over our circumstances. It makes us feel safe. However, it’s not a happy thought that it might be us that is to blame for some adversities! The Bible teaches that it’s the responsibility of God’s people to pray if we want to see our land restored (2 Chronicles 7:14).
We deceive ourselves and underestimate God’s holiness if we think we can avoid disasters by our righteous behaviour. Think about Job. “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8). Yet Job had more disasters in a week than most of us have in a lifetime. His righteous behaviour didn’t protect him from these happenings. Moral behaviour ought to flow from our desire to please God and not from an attempt to bribe God into blessing us.
We aren’t always going to avoid tragedy. We live in a fallen world and God hasn’t yet restored to us all that was lost at the fall. That day is still coming. In the meantime, the Biblical directive is to humble ourselves and pray that God will restore our land.
