Fall into God

How many of us can worship God in the midst of disaster?

At church this weekend we saw a clip of a documentary called "out of the rubble" about the earthquake in Haiti and the stories of those who have survived it. The story shared was of a boy who was on his way to his grandparents house. As he started up the stairs the quake began. When it started to shake he ran faster up the stairs, but it kept shaking and then the walls came down and he was pinned underneath by his leg. A rescue worker finally came and cut the iron pinning his leg. The ended up amputating his leg and we saw video of him hobbling around on crutches. The strange thing is, he still had a smile on his face. He was still playing with his friends, he was still laughing. The last shot of the clip he is sitting in the tent he is now living in and says,"a house with a tin roof is better than a tent, it is stronger. But if you give me a tent, I will take the tent, I will take the tent."

In Job chap 1 we have the story of a man who is righteous before God. He even makes a sacrifice each day for each of his children. Praying to God for them because one of them might have cursed God in their heart without knowing it. He is even recognized in the counsel of heaven as a righteous man. The Devil is there as the ruler of this world and says, "of course he is righteous you have blessed him, he has no reason to curse you." So God gives Job's possessions and family into the hands of the Devil. In one day everything is destroyed or stolen. All of Job's livestock is gone and all of his children are crushed under the weight of his oldest son's house as they are feasting together.

What is the response of this righteous man? He shaves his head and falls down on his face to worship God. "Naked I came into this world and naked I will be taken out. The Lord gives and he takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Absolutely heart broken dependence on God. There is nothing else he can do. He can't bring them back, he can't change a thing. All he can do is fall into God.

I can't imagine losing my child. I know some of you reading this have. I am about to attend a chapel where a mother on the anniversary of her son's suicide will be once again encouraging students, as she did a year ago, not to go down this road. The pain driving her to share with these kids must be immense.

What kind of faith does it take to fall down and worship in tragedy. All I know of from my own darkest times is a realization there is no where else to go. If I turned away from God in those moments, where else would I turn? There is no other place I can think of to go that would be helpful in any way.

I could drowned myself in addiction, I could harden myself to any emotion and live only doing my duty, I could go into my house and never come out again. But what good would any of this accomplish? I could reject God and live a life without faith bitter at the world. Once again what good would that do?

If you find your self in the midst of disaster and great suffering. I pray you and I would fall into God as Job did. For what else can we do, but depend on him and let him hold us when our legs, reason, and strength fail.