Recently I was talking to a friend who described to me the curious effects tornados can have. Being from the midwest she had a lot more exposure to tornado disasters than myself, and she explained how at times a tornado will touch down and utterly destroy a house while leaving the neighboring houses untouched. She then mentioned that due to the utter bias of these natural disasters, it's not hard to wonder if God had intended the event to teach someone a permanent lesson.
I don't think it is uncommon for people to try and find out why things happen. For those who have gained a knowledge that God lives, and with the understanding that God does in fact have power over the elements, it is also not uncommon to then ask if not "Why did God cause this to happen?" then at least "Why did God let this happen?" Knowing that since God has the power, he could have prevented it.
So why does God let bad things happen?
I had been considering this a little while back, and at the time though I didn't have a fully satisfying answer, I knew that God loves us. The next step was to figure out how the letting bad things happen as well as His loving us fit together.
One conclusion I came to is as follows: Knowing that part of the purpose of our existence here on Earth is to learn from our own experiences, in order for any real learning to be done here there would have to be real consequences for all of our actions. This means that if I make a bad choice, bad things would follow. This also means that if I made a bad choice that involved other people they would experience the bad consequences of my actions whether they deserved it or not.
So a large sum of our purpose here on earth is to experience what it is like to live with imperfect people in an imperfect system. By doing so we can then honestly appreciate a perfect system like the one God lives in. Living in an imperfect system means that we not only are going to have to suffer the consequences of other people's bad choices, but we will also have to suffer the consequences of an imperfect world, including the occasional tornado.
In the end I can almost see a loving God saying, "For the next so many years you will be living in an imperfect world so you can get a taste for what it is like. It's important that you understand the full cause and effect of your actions so my intervention will be very minimal. Other people will be learning similar lessons so at times you will suffer the consequences of their actions. But don't worry, once you've come to understand the consequences of your actions I will be there to help you. You won't have to suffer the full consequences, it's just important that you understand them."
