God's sovereignty and Myanmar

Georgia law prof Randy Beck responds to my post on God and Myanmar as follows:

Coming from a Reformed Protestant perspective, I think you're right that for a theology grounded in Scripture, the sovereignty of God will be unavoidable. The theme is equally strong in the New Testament and the Old. The crucifixion of Christ, for instance, occurred "by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." (Acts 2:23)

The problem comes when people claim to know why God allows particular events to occur. Scripture offers a wide range of reasons why God might permit someone to suffer, and punishment for sin is only one of the possibilities. Christ dealt with this issue in Luke's gospel, rejecting the crowd's facile assumption that those who suffer must be worse sinners than other people. (Luke 13:1-5)

One thing Scripture does affirm is that God works all things for good--that he brings good even out of evil. (Rom. 8:28) I think that's the point of Joseph's comment to his brothers after they sold him into slavery, a sin that ultimately led to their survival in spite of famine: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Gen. 50:20) To my mind, the sovereignty of a good God gives believers reason to hope even in a situation like the tragedy in Myanmar. Even this is not outside of God's control and He will bring good from it that we can't as yet anticipate.