Thoughts on the China Quake

It's impossible to watch the news these days and not get emotional. While relief efforts continued in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar, a massive 7.9 earthquake hit central China on Monday. Writing is cathartic. Yet, I cannot sufficiently express what I feel for the people of these two countries. My heart especially breaks over the sight of all the Chinese children being pulled from the rubble of their schools. What's it like to be a mother who can only have one child, to stake all your joy and hope on that child, and then lose him or her? I imagine life for such a mother would seem no longer worth living.

During such catastrophes people usually ask why. Why did God allow this? Why so many innocents taken?

The Bible gives us some insight:

1. Children who die without the knowledge of sin go to heaven.
2. Heaven is a real and perfect place, where our loving Creator resides.
3. Many times, God calls His little ones home to prevent them from a future of misery.
4. God knows the future.
5. Ever since Adam brought sin into the perfect world God created for man, this cursed world has been hurtling toward final destruction. Disease, destruction, and death are man's fault, not God's.
6. God will create a new earth, but first, this one has to go.
7. God manifests Himself through His creation.
8. God's objective in making the "waters roar" and "the mountains shake" is to grab the attention of those who would not otherwise consider Him.
9. Life on earth is a vapor that appears for a short time then vanishes away. "Prepare to meet thy God" today; tomorrow may be too late.
10. Every human soul is precious, designed to live forever with the Creator. Whether we actually spend eternity in heaven with God depends on the choice each of us makes on earth.
11. The choice is this: receive or reject Jesus Christ, God's provision for our sin. Receiving Jesus Christ guarantees eternal life in heaven. Rejecting Him guarantees everlasting torment in hell. (No decision is the same as rejecting Him).
12. Only the things we do for Christ will last.

If we seek Jesus Christ, embrace Him, get to know Him, rejoice in His goodness and share Him with others; if we labor to rescue souls facing the greater, everlasting catastrophe of hell, then our lives, even when emptied of all we hold dear, are worth living.

This morning I came across a Psalm that not only makes sense out of the tragic state of affairs on earth, but offers great comfort to all who come to Jesus Christ.

Psalm 46

1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

6The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

7The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

8Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

9He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Photo distributed by the official Xinhua news agency