February 15, 2023
I don’t think any of us can comprehend the heartbreak of thousands of families in Turkey and Syria who have been shattered by the recent earthquake. The visuals on the internet and news services are overwhelming, and the hard bitten journalists who heretofore have “seen everything” are clearly stricken with emotion as they report on what they are witnessing. The oppressing sadness of the rescue attempts in the rubble is broken with shouts of joy and even dancing from time to time as someone is miraculously pulled alive out of the flattened buildings. But the joy is short lived.
The stench of death pervades. And there’s little hope on the horizon. It may take years, or perhaps never, to recover.
The thing is – it could be us. Every day the ground shakes somewhere. And, as is the case in New Zealand, the storms rage and the waters surge displacing millions.
The fact is that we’re all very vulnerable, all the time. We have no way of knowing what the day may bring. Anxiety about the future can dominate.
Jesus had a wise word for us:
“Think not what the morrow bringeth. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. We’ve got enough on our plate today. There’s no point in worrying about tomorrow. Indeed, why borrow trouble from the future? The Lord is our security. And this is our ultimate comfort in troubling times.
