Stress on San Andreas Fault at thousand-year high

Rescuers in Venezuela worked through the night Friday to save hundreds trapped in rubble and find thousands more missing in the aftermath of Wednesday’s earthquakes, the strongest to strike the country since 1900. What happened there could happen here: New research warns that stress on Southern California’s San Andreas and San Jacinto fault lines has reached the highest level in a thousand years, putting the region in a “critically loaded” state that could cause a large, multi-fault earthquake.

Whether you and I live in an earthquake zone or not, we need hope that sustains our hearts in hazardous days. I found such encouragement recently in an unexpected place.

Dodgeball as a metaphor for life

My wife and I were keeping two of our grandkids, and I took them to a local indoor trampoline park. It includes a dodgeball arena where kids bounce up and down while throwing balls at the other side. I am proud to report that each of them won a game, outlasting everyone else on their team while “knocking out” everyone on the other side.

Upon reflection, I see their experience as a metaphor for my own. While I have never competed in trampoline dodgeball, it seems I have done little else for much of my life.

I have thrown my “ball” at targets that seemed appropriate while trying to dodge those thrown at me. All the while knowing that even if I win, the game starts again and the competition resumes. I’m never done for long. And even if I outlast others, there are days when I wonder if I’m doing anything that truly matters or just playing a game to while away the time until the game is over.

With regard to those suffering in Venezuela, I don’t live in an earthquake zone, but tornadoes are common in our part of the world. We don’t fear hurricanes this far inland, but we don’t get to see sunsets on the ocean. And terminal illnesses are just as threatening here as anywhere else.

If I’m not facing disaster or disease today, that doesn’t mean I won’t tomorrow. In this “game,” there’s ultimately no winning. Unless Jesus returns first, a “ball” will one day knock me out. Perhaps today.

But the more I reflected on this fact, the more I was drawn to hope that redeems it.

What my horoscope said for today

There is no logical way to prove in this life that this life is not all there is. Near-death experiences come close, but even they have their skeptics. As John Hick’s parable illustrates, when a Christian walks with an unbeliever down the road of life and they come to the last turn in the road, one will be proven right and one wrong.

In the meantime, is religion the “opium of the people,” as Karl Marx alleged? Believing that there is a Supreme Being ruling this world gives us hope, but is this hope real? The Greeks presumably had such hope in Zeus and his fellow deities, but we would not make their faith ours. Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus have their religious hopes, but I don’t believe what they believe simply because they believe it.

I am confident that God redeems all he allows (cf. 1 Peter 5:10), but I must admit that I cannot demonstrate such redemption for all suffering on this side of eternity. Paul claimed, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Is my similar trust in God’s redemption just wish fulfillment akin to a horoscope?

I checked mine this morning, something I’ve never done before and absolutely do not recommend. I am doing so now only for illustrative purposes: it tells me that “clearing backlogs and improving workplace systems can attract positive attention,” but I knew that already. If I do what it says and experience what it promises, I can fallaciously credit its “wisdom” or I can correctly view this as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Is this how our faith in Christ works in the face of innocent suffering?

Why I believe in the sun at dawn

I’ll respond with three interrelated biblical facts.

One: Innocent suffering does not disprove our faith. To the contrary, it shows that Jesus was right when he told his followers, “In this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). Paul even warned us, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

Two: A worldview should be evaluated by the degree to which it does what it promises to do. With regard to God’s redemption, trusting him to redeem all he allows positions me to experience such redemption (cf. Psalm 130:7). When I ask for his help, I draw close enough to him to receive it—to hear his voice, to feel his touch, to experience his empowering presence.

Three: The best way to know my hope in Jesus is real is to experience Jesus (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:6). When Paul and Silas sang hymns to God in prison at midnight, an earthquake miraculously freed them from prison (Acts 16:25–26). Writing later from another imprisonment, Paul testified that “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” gave him hope and purpose that sustained him in the hardest places and times of life (Philippians 3:8–14).

I walked around a pond in our neighborhood yesterday morning at sunrise. The sun was not yet visible to me, but the dawn it produced was nonetheless spectacular.

My experience called to mind an observation from C. S. Lewis. To paraphrase: I believe in the sun at dawn, not because I can see it, but “because by it I see everything else.”

Why do you need to make his faith yours today?

Quote for the day:

“No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were born in the wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have ‘learned in suffering what they taught in song.’” —George MacDonald

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