Earthquake Pt. Tres

I fell asleep to some aftershocks rocking my house last night. Nothing major, just trembling.

I went to town today to go to church. I got to church fine. Roads seemed fine. When I crossed a small bridge over the river (that leads to the ocean), it was scattered with logs. It looked like God dropped his Lincoln Logs on the river. It was bizarre. And to see "icebergs" on the shore. So right now, the ice on the river has been melting...slowly. The tsunami obviously didn't like the ice on the river and chucked them up on shore. I asked the pastor's wife how things were on Friday, and all she said was, "Praise God we weren't in Iwate." We didn't even really talk about it much at church. We prayed for Sendai and Iwate and Miyagi. But things were...normal.

My cell phone finally got service again around 11am. I had a mass number of emails on my phone. I was finally able to get hold of one of my friends in Tokyo who told me she and her family are fine. I grabbed lunch with some other ALTs. But half of them couldn't get to town because the highways were still closed on their end. After driving around town trying to find a soup curry restaurant, we discovered that roads were still flooded...and closed. We found out that train service started up again. Also a good thing. Seems like things up here are going back to normal at least.

Perhaps that's the weirdest thing. Because while the rest of the country goes on with life, there's a huge chunk of this country that's devastated. I didn't even turn on the news today because I didn't want to see more replays of the tsunami wiping out entire towns and hearing little kids screaming while they watch their house float past them. I don't want to see the list of names of people who are still missing. I don't want to see the hordes of people forced to sleep in school gymnasiums because their towns are gone. I don't want to see refinery fire or the nuclear reactor. I don't want to see it. And tomorrow, I'll go to work, and it'll be like any other Monday. That's really sad.

Ironically, I've been reading this book about the sovereignty of God. I have to trust that God is in control, even when natural disasters wipe out pieces of my country and devastate a nation. I have to trust God. I have no choice. Look at Isaiah 45:7:

"I form light and create darkness,

I make well-being and create calamity,

I am the LORD, who does all these things."

In his book Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts, Gerald Bridges says, "God's sovereignty over nature does mean that, whatever we experience at the hand of the weather or other forces of nature (such as plant diseases or insect infestation of our crops), all circumstances are under the watchful eye and sovereign control of our God."

I don't understand why God creates disaster, or why He throws Lincoln Logs in a river in one town and and completely levels the other town. I don't. He said He sends His rain and sun on the righteous and the unrighteous. I don't understand. But I'm not going to take God off His throne of absolute sovereignty. I'm not going to judge God for seemingly being not good. Who am I to judge God? Who am I to tell God He did wrong? I know God can and will use everything for His glory. And Christians and missionaries in Japan all know that this country needs to see God's glory.

My God is bigger than a 9.0 earthquake. My God is bigger than a giant tsunami. My God is bigger than a nuclear meltdown. My God is bigger than spiritual apathy. I believe God is bigger than all of this. I believe He is still good and He is still sovereign. I believe He can and will use this disaster for His glory. And if I could understand why He allowed such a disaster to occur, He wouldn't be big enough for me to worship in fear and reverence.

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God, You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power

Our God, Our God...

"Our God" -- Chris Tomlin