Flood Waters & Earth Quakes

This devotional came to my in box today and it spoke to me. I share it with that Spirit.

Good morning. Welcome to Monday, June 16th.

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, &; and the flame shall not consume you.”
Isaiah 43:1-2

For the past several months the earth has been slipping out from under the lives of millions of people. A tremendous cyclone tears through Myanmar taking the lives of tens of thousands. Then an earthquake hits in China and tens of thousands again perish. Then the floods and tornadoes come to the Midwestern United States and still another flood in China forces a million people to flee.

To go where?

Where can we go to be absolutely safe? Such a place doesn’t exist.

I have never been through any natural disaster that comes anywhere close to what these people have experienced. Hurricane Katrina was devastating but Houston came away from the experience untouched. I was just north of Mount St. Helens when it erupted, the sound of the eruption woke us all up, but we didn’t even get any ash until two weeks later when it had circled the earth. I’ve never even been touched by a flood. So I hesitate to even know what to say other thank thinking out loud from my point of view.

Such disasters certainly put our lives into perspective. They tear down the illusory wall of control behind which we live our lives. They teach us about the utter fragility of life. They destroy any sense that we are in charge of much of anything.

Homes and businesses and schools and buildings topple like sandcastles at the close of the day. Flood waters scour the signs of civilization and replace it with the scars of nature gone wild.

And we are reminded of what really matters to us. Life matters to us! Things go away and it hurts for a moment. People go away and life is diminished forever.

The people of ancient Israel experienced such devastation. Sometimes at the hands of invading armies seeking profit and exploitation. Sometimes at the shocking eruption of volcanoes and the raging waters of flooding rivers. They had no tools to measure these events, no real signs that they were coming. They only had one answer – God must be punishing us.

So it is a remarkable sign of faith that the prophets turn the tables from destruction to encouragement with the reminder that God can’t be blown away by a crumbling mountain or swept away by the waters of a flood. Rather, God can be and is with them through it all.

Not an impersonal timepiece maker God but a personal God, one who has created us, who knows us, who has called us by name. To know such God is with us means the world when the world disappears under our feet.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, we watch with horror and wonder as the reports come to us about the untold suffering that millions have been experiencing. You have heard the prayers, we pray that you come now out of hiding to bring comfort to those who are hurting, who are grieving, who are forced now to rebuild lives out of what now remains. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Pastor Kerry Nelson