Twenty to five in the morning, April 18, I was awakened from
sleep by the shaking of my bed. Wind? No. Earthquake. Nothing else shakes a bed
inside a house. Just as I wondered if I should climb under the bed in case the
ceiling fan fell, the jarring stopped. I jumped up to see if my husband, in his
bedroom, felt it. We grabbed each other in the living room.
“Did you feel that?” I
said.
“Oh, yeah. That was a big one. Turn on the radio, let’s see
where the center was.” For central Illinois, it was big. Centered 150 miles south,
it was 5.2 on the scale.
In Reno, USA Today reported yesterday, “Residents here are being shaken, literally, by an
ongoing series of earthquakes, which experts warn could be a precursor to a
major seismic event.” Sandy Jung, formerly a California resident, says, she’s used
to the ground shaking, but not “swarms of them. Not day after day after day.”
Unsettling, scary, irritating at best.
And many of us are enduring financial earthquakes. Foreclosures.
Job loss. Food and gas prices.
It is time to cling even more tightly to the unshakeable
kingdom. The writer to the Hebrews says, “ ‘Once more
I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words ‘once more’
indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that
what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom
that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with
reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’” Hebrews 12:26-29 NIV
To cling to the Creator-King does not mean our worst fears
won’t come true. It means, even if they do, the God who is with us will carry
us through. Jesus’ grip is unshakeable.
Father, Jesus, Spirit, we worship you. We cling to you. You
are our hope, our faith, and our life.