Today is Wednesday, August 30th, 2023. I'm Chris Elkins, and welcome to the Daily

article podcast. Today's article is written by Dr. Jim Denison, co-founder and CEO of Denison

Forum. Hurricane Idalia strengthened into a powerful category four storm early this morning and is expected to make

landfall soon on the Big Bend region of Florida's Gulf Coast. A local sheriff's office warned

there is great potential for death and catastrophic destruction. The National Weather Service

predicts the storm will likely be an unprecedented event for the area,

noting that no major hurricanes have struck this region in recorded history and adding,

when you try to compare this storm to others, don't. No one else has seen this.

In the face of disaster, it is human nature to turn instinctively to God.

In Oscar Thompson's classic book on evangelism, he identifies seven concentric circles of concern

in order, self, family, relatives, friends, neighbors and associates, acquaintances,

and those unknown to us. I suspect the intensity

of our intercession for those in the path of the hurricane aligns with these circles. We do the same

when shootings, wildfires, or other tragedies occur. Here's the larger question. In the face of

suffering, why pray to God at all?

Atheists often point to innocent suffering as a prime reason for their rejection of God's existence.

If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, how can he allow hurricanes and other disasters?

While this is a subject for another day, see my website paper on suffering and

longer forms, such as my book, Wrestling with God. Find links to these in today's episode notes.

I'd like to point their question in a related direction. Since suffering is such a universal

experience, why is faith in God such a universal response? Why haven't we learned what atheism,

very much the minority position in America and in the world, claims to know? An evolutionary answer

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