International travel is always an adventure even when all goes perfectly. Our recent trip to Spain included many hours waiting in airports. This gave us plenty of time to worry about which gate we should be waiting at, if our luggage would follow us or if our flight would arrive on time. No, our flight was late getting into Jerez where our son was waiting for us. Yes, all our luggage arrived with us. No, we had no idea which gate we needed to wait at but no one speaks English in Madrid!
In times of disaster, extended travel can become a nightmare for travelers and their families left behind. We were not the only parents horrified by the natural disasters in Japan on March 11. Our other son was riding a subway in Tokyo when the city began to quake! Suddenly we are forced to wonder if the ground beneath us is solid? 3/11/11 gave us a resounding “NO!” to that question. The Bible testifies to that truth in Romans 8:19-22:
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Nothing in this world is really “safe”. In Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins advises his nephew, Frodo, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road and, if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
We take so much for granted, assuming our immediate environs will remain static.
ie: There will always be electricity when we flip the switch:
Fresh water will run from the tap each time we turn the faucet:
Even such mundane assumptions as our luggage always being on the plane we are riding in! God gives us fair warning in Hebrews 12:25-29:
See to it that you do not refuse Him Who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven? At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, "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."
I take great comfort in a verse from an old hymn:
When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
Love as always, Elaine (standing on the Solid Rock)
