After great tragedies (holocausts, Indonesian tsunami, Japan earthquake, etc.) many say in answer to those asking how God could let it happen/have made it happen, that God does/allows such things in order to prevent something even worse. As with earthquakes which are relieving stresses along faultlines, had they not quaked when they did that stress would have continued building until eventually the quake would have been even worse.
It's a small comfort to those who died, or lost loved ones, but it's important to remember that we can never hope to see the Big Picture God does. A good analogy comes from the movie, "The Mothman Prophecies" where the academic is explaining how the Mothman exists like a window washer high up a skyscraper; The Windowwasher can see a traffic accident many blocks away where we at street-level couldn't. This is like the reality in which God exists, both literally and figuratively high above us, whereas we're stuck "at ground level" and within the mortal coil.
I take comfort in how bad things have always befallen the human race and will until God turns off the lights at the very end. There are lessons to be learned enduring tragedies that befall us and our's. Like appreciating the time we're given, the feelings of love when we loose those we loved, the importance of foresight for disasters and preparing for them best we can, etc. If nothing bad ever happened our perspective would be different and we wouldn't udnerstand loss and tragedy. Been various sci-fi movies and series episodes explaining this concept like an original Star Trek episode where two planets have been at war with one another for centuries. As their technology evolved, rather than continuing to bomb each other they came up with computers which ran a virtual war and when ever casualties resulted the living, real population would report obediantly to execution chambers en masse'. Rather than trying for peace they went along like this until Captain Kirk intervened and destroyed the computers making them face real war once more.
Tragedy shakes us out of our complacency and reminds us how life is finite. Nothing God made is supposed to last forever, not people, not nations, not even this planet or our host-star. Even whole galxies eventually end, and perhaps even this 'verse. So appreciate life while you have it, mourn the dead, prepare for the next tragedy, but through it all know this:
Sometimes God by himself determines what will happen. Sometimes God modify's His plan to accommodate the actions, desires, and choice of his created beings.....like you and I, we are on of God's created beings.
What I heard in your posting was that God is in control of everything...good luck with that one, isn't that like Calvinism?
God id not responsible for someone being robbed or any other bad thing. He doesn't control everything. That is why He gives us power over all of the forces of the enemy.
The word says "The is no darkness in God at all. He is only light."
We shouldn't say that evil things done by people or Satan are God's will - they are not. "Let no man say that he is tempted of God."
