Earthquakes can be more unsettling than tornadoes, floods, and fires, even though the damage in the latter is usually horrifying. Earthquakes slam in unannounced—you don't see them coming. They just happen in many parts of the country.
Other places have to deal with tornados, or hurricanes. Floods and fires occur everywhere. Suddenly! There is no place to hide, no way to elude them, nowhere to go.
Natural calamities, such as these, shake us to the core because they short-circuit our inner security system. Our naturally developed notion of being in charge of our personal safety gets knocked off its foundation. Helplessness defines the moment. We are out of control.
The jolting and shaking of an earthquake, like burglary or rape, violently strips away our protective armor—that illusion that we are safe, and have things under control. Fire disillusions us and robs us of our fantasy of invulnerability. Natural disasters are terrible. The damage, death, and destruction they often bring is too sad and terrible for anything but lament and anguish.
On the other hand, an eye-opening earthquake jolt of 5.5 on the Richter Scale can awaken those of us whose denial-systems are working too well. And surely you have been reading between the lines that my reference to striking of disasters is not limited to geology, or weather. People experience earthquakes in their relationships, their faith, their finances, their dreams and goals. These are just as shattering as feeling the ground tremble beneath their feet.
Earthquakes, for most of us, work as an effective temporary cure for an unrealistic sense of security. Sometimes we are so smug and comfortable that even our reach toward God is perfunctory and habitual. An earthquake can change that. When there is no place to hide, nothing to be done, and everything could shake apart or crash down on top of us in a few seconds, we may quickly recognize our only True Security.
My prayer for each of you . . . my hope and desire for all my readers . . . is that you will feel God's presence with you when disaster strikes. And my prayer is that these disasters are mild . . . more of a ground tremor than a BIG earthquake.
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