COMMENTARY | Paul Lord is a very lucky guy. He didn't win millions in a lottery, however. He survived a tornado that took the lives of five people, including two children, according to CNN. The report talks about how thankful Lord is for his survival. Being happy to dodge a bullet is understandable. The first quote the report attributes to Lord is a message of gratitude to God, saying, "We are truly blessed. God saved us, and that's what it's about." That's a load of baloney for several reasons.
For his statement to be true the events would have to have been under God's direction. If so, describing anything about a tornado that destroys a town and kills several people a blessing is unwarranted. A true blessing would have been God's hand directing the tornado away from the town so no one got killed and nothing got destroyed.
It's also the height of hubris to claim God saved him. For that to be meaningful it must be assumed Lord was somehow more worthy of being saved than the five people the tornado killed. Three of the victims were girls of ages 5, 7 and 10 years old. Were those three children so vile in the eyes of God that they deserved death while Lord was deserving of rescue?
The report mentions the tornado knocked out the early-warning system and emergency sirens. Was that a blessing? Is it somehow a holy thing the twister crashed through the town without warning that might have saved lives?
It's amazing to me whenever survivors of natural disasters attribute their good fortune to divine intervention. Doing so ignores the lack of assistance offered to actual victims. It's reminiscent of cancer survivors saying prayer healed them while ignoring the fact that many more cancer victims died while praying just as faithfully.
If people want to attribute good fortune to God they're free to do so. I just hope they look for it in places where the overall situation was positive. Surviving a natural disaster and claiming one was blessed is not offering proper recognition of God's help. It's trivializing the suffering of others less fortunate. People of true faith are more compassionate than that.
