A friend from Texas put on his Facebook page: “Satan called. He wants his weather back.”
Meanwhile a gathering in Reliant Stadium in Houston includes religious leaders who blame the slide in the Japanese stock market on the pagan ritual of its emperor, dead birds fall from the sky in Arkansas because a former governor was supportive of gay rights, Haiti suffered earthquakes because the government recognized Voodoo as a legitimate religion. If all those things are true, then how do they explain what is happening in Texas with the worst drought in the history of that state continuing?
It is so easy to come up with reasons why others deserve to suffer. When that same logic is applied back on us, we are very ready to reject it as illogical.
The fact is that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. The rain falls on the just and the unjust.
Goodness should be evaluated neither by suffering nor by material possessions.
Personally, I use a Trinitarian evaluation: how happy I am with myself, how I relate to nature and how happy I am with the friends and family I have. Yes, there are “I’s” in all of those evaluations. That is because my reaction is an act of my will. Like everyone else I will suffer from external forces beyond my control but that suffering does not mean I am good or bad. How I choose to react to it is a better indication of whether I am good or bad.