Waiting for Another Earthquake

A late afternoon knock on the back door by a nice young man in a hard hat isn't exactly an everyday occurrence at my house. Neither is said man telling me sometime tomorrow, I will be greeted by a huge sonic boom that will "sound like a jet engine" as his company works on the main gas line.

At the end of his speech, he placed a bright red sheet of paper in my hands, said not to worry, and left.

Hmmm....nope. Nothing about this situation screams "no danger" to me.

First, they chose flaming red for the notice--not an "it's-all-going-to-be-okay" powder blue or some other encouraging, comforting pastel color. Red. Then there's the time-consuming door-to-door messenger, spreading the word that it won't be as bad as it sounds. And finally there's the fact that the messenger had to wear his hard hat just to tell me about the noise.

It may not be a dangerous situation, but it sure just doesn't scream "no danger" to me. In fact, it seems so much like how the cataclysmic events seen on the news are dealt with.

Earthquake in Haiti. Earthquake in Japan. Earthquake in Chile.

There seem to be two schools of thought for dealing with these devastating geographical events.

The one side says it's just a shifting of tectonic plates, that large earthquakes occurs every 25 to 100 years in Chile anyway. So no cause for concern--it just happens on a kind of schedule throughout history. No danger.

The other side says it's caused by global warming (or climate change, depending on whether you've shifted from the old verbiage to the new, more fashionable terminology). And we can stop these problems by using fluorescent light bulbs, regulating our cars' and factories' emissions, and switching from fossil fuels. Again, no cause for concern--we can fix it.

Again...sorry, but nope. Neither answer screams "no danger" to me. My life textbook says differently.

Sin is the cause. Earthquakes are the effect.

I'm not railing about pacts with the devil or anything like that. But I am talking about sin. Breaking God's law. You know--those ten commandments?

Time and time again, God uses earthquakes to meet out His judgment for sin. I can't just ignore the 20 some odd times Scripture uses the term "earthquake" or the equal number of times it uses the word "shake."

Well....I guess I could. But would that make the danger any less real?

Other people see climate patterns, climate change. But I only see God's judgment.

That's real danger, eternal-life-separated-from-God kind of danger...and not something we can fix by permanently parking our cars or shutting down all forms of industry or charting the next one on a graph. That's something we can only fix by individually falling to our knees and begging God for mercy while turning over our hearts and lives in obedience to Him.

But do you know what I'm waiting for?

The big one.

The earthquake caused by my Lord placing His feet once more on Terra firma.

"A day of the LORD is coming when... the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south" (Zech. 14:1a, 3-4).

Yes. I wonder how the news media will explain that one away?