You Asked For It (Part Four) - 26th July 2026 - Ps. Phil Godsiff

Many of you I'm sure like me will remember back in December 20, not even 20, 2004, December 2004, Boxing Day, there was a massive tsunami that ended up killing more than 220,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean.

That's a little bit of a graphic to show where the earthquake was sent, a 9.3 magnitude earthquake, and then the ripple effect from that.

Thousands of people lost their lives.

And this was obviously a huge event.

On Boxing Day 2004, I was in an airplane, flying from New Zealand to Japan to go visit my girlfriend.

who's now my wife.

And so it was crazy.

Like I'd left Christchurch and then I remember landing in Japan and then kind of seeing news headlines of this tragedy that was unfolding.

And just the scale of the suffering that was involved with that provoked obviously a whole lot of reflection.

In the days and weeks after this tragedy, there were... newspapers and magazines, because that was what we had back in 2004 before social media.

And they were full of people trying to grapple with the reality of this tragedy.

And there was one particular author who asked the question, where was God when such a tragedy was happening? He went on to write, if God is God and this kind of thing happens, he's not good.

But if God is good, he's surely not God.

You can't have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe.

And so it's a powerful and very real example of how things happen in life that rattle us and that have the potential to really rattle us in our faith.

But also what I believe is that the times of suffering and hardship and even being confronted with evil and darkness, they equally have the potential to strengthen and reinforce our faith in a way that nothing else can.

More recently, you can think of what you see on the news every night.

We see catastrophic earthquakes in Venezuela, wildfires in Europe, not to mention wars being waged and atrocities carried out with countless of innocent lives swept up in it.

The world that we live in is rife with suffering and evil.

And the Christian faith is not alone in seeking to provide something of a response to the reality of suffering and evil in the world.

Many of you I'm sure like me will remember back in December 20, not even 20, 2004, December 2004, Boxing Day, there was a massive tsunami that ended up killing more than 220,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean.

That's a little bit of a graphic to show where the earthquake was sent, a 9.3 magnitude earthquake, and then the ripple effect from that.

Thousands of people lost their lives.

And this was obviously a huge event.

On Boxing Day 2004, I was in an airplane, flying from New Zealand to Japan to go visit my girlfriend.

who's now my wife.

And so it was crazy.

Like I'd left Christchurch and then I remember landing in Japan and then kind of seeing news headlines of this tragedy that was unfolding.

And just the scale of the suffering that was involved with that provoked obviously a whole lot of reflection.

In the days and weeks after this tragedy, there were... newspapers and magazines, because that was what we had back in 2004 before social media.

And they were full of people trying to grapple with the reality of this tragedy.

And there was one particular author who asked the question, where was God when such a tragedy was happening? He went on to write, if God is God and this kind of thing happens, he's not good.

But if God is good, he's surely not God.

You can't have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe.

And so it's a powerful and very real example of how things happen in life that rattle us and that have the potential to really rattle us in our faith.

But also what I believe is that the times of suffering and hardship and even being confronted with evil and darkness, they equally have the potential to strengthen and reinforce our faith in a way that nothing else can.

More recently, you can think of what you see on the news every night.

We see catastrophic earthquakes in Venezuela, wildfires in Europe, not to mention wars being waged and atrocities carried out with countless of innocent lives swept up in it.

The world that we live in is rife with suffering and evil.

And the Christian faith is not alone in seeking to provide something of a response to the reality of suffering and evil in the world.