July 9, 2025
In the last week or so, there have been tragic floods that have taken the lives of more than 100 people in several different states, as well as causing major property damage. It is a tremendous tragedy, of no one’s making or choosing. As the Church, it is our job to pray for, and embrace, those who’s lives have been forever changed because of these floods—through loss of life or loss of property. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims.
As I write this, please do not hear any blame. It is more out of sorrow that maybe something could have been done to avert some of these tragedies. If nothing else, I did not know the possibility of these storms, and I did not pray before hand to save lives. Maybe I could have prayed beforehand and helped. I don’t know, but it saddens me that I didn’t get the chance to even try.
Can Christians control the weather? I believe the answer is a resounding “Yes!” Should we try to control the weather all the time. I don’t think so. Can a lot of the destruction be averted from these storms (or tornadoes, or hurricanes, or other weather related disasters)? Yes, I believe it can be, and should be.
Sometimes the Lord will use the weather for purposes of His judgment; or, He may use severe weather, like major rainstorms, to bring an area out of a drought, or avert a drought. I believe the way I’m outlining here—thanks to John Alley for his teaching on this very thing—this prayer tactic does not “prevent” the Lord from using a storm for His purposes, while at the same time preventing natural disasters. I say “prevent the Lord”—like we can do anything to prevent the Lord from doing His will/purpose. If the Lord truly wants something done, there is nothing we can do to stop Him—nor should we try! But, because He’s given us authority over the earth, a lot of times, He will let our decisions stand, and we must live with the consequences of those decisions.
Though the Lord can, and does, use natural disasters for judgment, I believe very few disasters that we see are from the Lord. More than likely, the destruction is due to destructive demonic forces in the midst of the storms, rather than the destructive force of the Lord.
There are a couple of scripture passages that I go to for this. The first is Job 1:13-22. In this passage, we see the devil taking everything from Job. One of the destructive forces that he uses is wind that blew down the house where Job’s children were, killing all of them.
The other passage is Jesus’ calming the sea (Mk. 4:35-41, Mt. 8:18, 23-27; Lk 8:22, 25). If this storm were from God, then you would have God working against Himself, to then calm the storm. It should be noted that Jesus rebuked the storm, a word that is regularly used describing Jesus’ interaction with the demonic. Would Jesus have “rebuked” something from His Father? You could say that the Lord caused it in order for Jesus to still it. But, more than likely, it was destructive demonic forces in the storm.
So, how, as Christians, should we approach severe weather?
- Discern what God is doing with the weather. Is this something that the Lord is using? Would there be a greater purpose in the storm? Is the storm to water the land or fill reservoirs? Is it possibly a judgment storm? If so, you want to let the storm come through. You could command the storm to go out to sea. You could command the tornado to not form. But, should you? Maybe so, or maybe not. This is something that, if the Lord says to command it to go, you should. Otherwise, you should let it come, but…
- Command the principalities and powers, and the destructive demonic forces in the storm, to leave and have no effect.
I’ve seen this happen over and over where a storm will be allowed to come through, the rain will come, but anything destructive in the storm will leave.
Being in New England, we often get remnants of storms, but we rarely get one that is still hurricane status. Our state is notorious for having trees near power lines. The power goes out when people sneeze too hard. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not much. I had a friend in the power industry here tell me that if a category 1 storm ever hit our state, it would be a complete nightmare for the power industry.
A number of years ago a category 1 hurricane was supposed to come into our state. So, our church prayed. We did exactly as I recommended above. We commanded, in the name of Jesus, that all the principalities and powers in the storm would leave, and that that any destructive spirits in the storm would leave from the storm. The storm came into our state. In fact, I have a screenshot where the eye of the storm was passing almost directly over our house! But, no destruction. There was very, very little power outage statewide. There was just a little wind and rain, but almost nothing. Absolutely amazing results!
I’ve tried to make it a habit that anytime there is a storm that comes through, I rebuke anything in the storm that could be destructive. It takes the “bite” out of the storm—whether that’s wind, rain, snow, hail, etc. And, if the Lord does want to do something through the storm, I’m not rebuking Him, or the storm itself, just getting rid of principalities and powers as we are supposed to do in the first place.
When I forget to bind the powers in the storms, I feel badly, like I didn’t do my job. I hear about power outages, or people getting hurt, and I feel like there is something that I could have done to prevent it–or, at least tried.
All that to say, and I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I did not know about the possible tragedies of the recent storms until they had already wreaked their havoc. I wish I had. Maybe my prayers could have made a difference, or not. I’ll never know. No person can be everywhere at once, but because we are all One Body, we can span every part of this country.
Let’s all take up our God-given authority on this earth and be a part of the solution. Prayerfully, and by His grace, maybe we can all help to prevent more of these disasters. God’s people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Let us spread this knowledge in order that more people are not destroyed.
By His Grace.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Ryan
Habakkuk Ministries 