Celebrity televangelist Joel Osteen has taken quite a bit of heat in recent days over claims that he didn’t open his Houston-area megachurch to Hurricane Harvey victims right away. After he was taken to task on social media over reports Lakewood Church wasn’t taking in evacuees, Osteen tweeted that the church’s doors were open and they were taking in anyone needing shelter. When pressed by Today hosts last week why his church wasn’t used as a shelter right away, Osteen claimed he hadn’t been asked by the city and “they didn’t need us a shelter then.”

During his televised sermon today, Osteen seemed to reference the storm that devastated huge swaths of Texas and Louisiana. And the way the preacher told it, hurricanes like Harvey are just God’s way of saying you can take a great and life-altering tragedy.

Bringing up a biblical story involving Jesus and his apostles sailing across a lake during a hurricane-like storm, Osteen said that Jesus didn’t wake up during the squall because he knew they could handle it. “If they were all going to die, he would have gotten up without them having to wake him up,” he exclaimed.

Osteen then went on to tell his congregation that sometimes they may call on God to “fix this right now” as they panic during a storm, but that God apparently has a plan.

“The reason it may seem like God is not waking up is not because he’s ignoring you, not because he’s uninterested, it’s because he knows you can handle it,” he stated.

Osteen added, “Take it as a compliment.”

At the time of publication, at least 50 people have died as a result of Hurricane Harvey and thousands are displaced. Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said today that the cost of the recovery could be as much as $180 billion.

Watch the clip above, via WYNM Fox.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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