God is good, despite destruction says Pastor

Pastor at the Kingstown Baptist Church, Dr Cecil Richards, has declared faith in the goodness and faithfulness of God despite the destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl on July 1, 2024. Delivering a message on Sunday, July 14 at the Beryl benefit concert, dubbed ‘Yet still we rise’, Richards said much was lost but the situation could have been far worse.

“ …what people worked years upon years and sacrificed for was blown away in just a matter of hours,” he told the audience at the concert which featured performances, prayers and short addresses.

“ Many of these people prayed, and asked God to cover them… they asked God to watch over them and to keep them safe and …hours later their roofs were gone though they prayed, walls had collapsed though they had cried out to God, livelihood blown away, crops destroyed, and even they had cried out to God…”.

Pastor Richards said many people hold to verses in Psalm 46 in which the writer declares that God is a refuge and strength and a present help in trouble, but, faced with trouble, he has heard some say that God was not a present help in our times of trouble.

“But I’ve come here to say to my fellow Vincentians, despite what happened in Beryl, that we can still hope in God…truth be told that even though there is…an omniscient God, an omnipotent God, a powerful God, even though that God is still sovereign, disasters are real. We cannot ignore that across this world people who believe in God are struck time and time again by devastating disasters…” Pastor Richards told his listeners as he highlighted some examples such as Haiti, and New Orleans which have been affected by catastrophic natural events.

He said these occurrences were not God’s plan for mankind but mankind disobeyed and caused sin and that has negatively affected the human race leading to disastrous consequences. He also outlined two possible reasons for disasters: one being God’s way of capturing attention, and the other attributed to the negligence of corporations and individuals in environmental care.

“When we fail to take care of our environment, when mother nature begins to deal out on us the consequences of our actions, we cannot blame God, and we cannot say God has abandoned us…the bible is clear that what we sow, we will also reap.”

The Pastor also shared some options how people should respond when faced with disaster.

“In our disaster, there are three things we should do…we should reach up and worship God even in the bad times. We should reach out; there’s nothing that speaks more about the heart of a people than how we react in a time of disaster. We should reach forward; Beryl is behind us, but there is a future ahead of us, and we have to be ready to march into that future and rebuild a stronger and better St Vincent.”

In addition to the Prime Minister, other Ministers of Government who addressed the gathering, were Minister of Education, Curtis King, who acknowledged the collaborative efforts between the population, private individuals and government in aiding those affected by Hurricane Beryl; and Minister of National Mobilisation, Orando Brewster, who shared words of solace, expressing confidence in God’s guidance to help the nation navigate through these challenges.

The featured performance was done by Reggae Gospel artiste, Jaron Nurse of Trinidad and Tobago, alongside local performances by Ronnie Richardson and Gary Miller.