God and natural disasters

I'm writing this with some caution, given recent events in Burma and China.

Georgina has asked a great question: what we are to make of natural disasters which cause so much pain, death and destruction, when we also know that they are from the hand of God?

Here's an outline of a biblical response to this:

1 Before humans decided to disobey God, there were no natural disasters in the world as everything worked exactly as it should in perfect harmony (Gen 1-2).

2 As a result of our choice to disobey God, chaos has entered into the world (Gen 3, Rom 5:12; Rom 8:18-25). We are all subject to decay, and the created order isn't exempt. Natural disasters are just one outworking of this chaos in creation.

3 People who suffer and die in natural disasters or accidents are not necessarily any more sinful than others (Luke 13:1-5). Sometimes we suffer directly because of our sin (eg. John 5:1-15), but a lot of bad stuff just happens to people without any rhyme or reason to who is or isn't affected.

4 I'm extrapolating a bit from Luke 13:1-5 here, but I take it that natural disasters should serve as a warning for us to repent. Reminders of our mortality should drive us to make sure that we are right with God.

5 Finally we see that natural disasters aren't God's ultimate intention for us. When we read Rev 21-22 we see a renewed, transformed world where everything works as it should. The curse has been reversed (Gen 3; Rev 22:3).

Now, there is still a big area of mystery. Why does God choose to operate in this way at all? Why some people and not others?

I don't know.

What I can say for sure is that when I look at the start (Gen 1-2) and ultimate fulfilment of creation (Rev 21-22) I see that God is good and has good plans and purposes for His world. When I look at Jesus I see that God suffered in the most costly way possible in order to rescue us from our sin and the chaotic world that resulted from our disobedience.