Today a bomb exploded in my city.
A friend called from across town: Did we know, she asked, that a bus had blown up? I had no idea. For twenty minutes, I had been going about my business, curled up on the couch with my laptop, arranging mundane details and completely unaware of the suffering unfolding on a familiar street corner.
I stopped. Prayed. Someone popped up on my computer screen, wondering: Is anyone you know at that bus stop? No, thank God.
I spent the rest of the afternoon talking to friends worldwide: Did you hear? Will you pray? And praying for small heartaches they mentioned as well. (Is any heartache small?) I spent the rest of the afternoon with a sense of unreality. Can this really be happening? And a touch of guilt. How can I act so normal? (I hardly noticed the fact that rockets were landing a couple hours’ drive away, or bombs on the next continent over).
Of course, this latest tragedy in Israel is just another drop in an ocean of sufferings, pounding the world with wave after wave now coming in such quick succession that if you keep an eye on the news, you’ve hardly got time left to breathe. Earthquakes, uprisings, wars, massacres, bombings. Leaders falling and others rising. Possible nuclear meltdowns. Just struggling to believe that all this could happen in my lifetime, let alone in the space of a few months, is really taxing my credulity.
So what’s the point?
God is not staggered. He’s not confused. He’s not willing that any should perish.
Things like this were happening in Jesus’ day, natural and human-initiated disasters alike. Anxious folks pondered the why behind a Roman massacre and the tragic deaths of 18 who were crushed by a falling tower. Jesus said, “Were they worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” No. We’re all overtaken by sin, all headed for death — all pursued by God for eternal life.
I see flashes of grace in today. The desperately needed rain that fell this morning, leaving everything sparkling in the sun. And this afternoon: The alert snack-seller, who recognized the bomb before it went off, and began sending people away from the area. The paramedics already gathered within hearing, discussing aid for Japan. They immediately ran to help.
I have no idea what God is doing for individuals in the other stricken countries. But I know He is there, just as He is here.
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear
though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
Elisabeth Adams 