‘And with these hells and our heavens so few inches apart, we must be awfully small, and not as strong as we think we are’ – Rich Mullins
I was just a kid when Mount St. Helens, located in Washington State, erupted with the force of a 24-megaton blast, 1600 times the power of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. So much ash and dust were thrown into the atmosphere that for days it floated above my head in Brick NJ. Yes, it had traveled all the way across the country.
My Dad waxed theological. He thought the eruption was God’s way of telling us proud and boastful humans that we weren’t as powerful as we thought we were. ‘Oh, you have nuclear bombs, huh? Well look what I can do.’ I wasn’t so sure that was what God was trying to say, but I had to admit my Dad had a point. At the very least, the eruption was a reminder that we are not the most powerful force on the planet, let alone the universe.
In recent days, as the reality of a pandemic hits the United States, I have been thinking about my Dad’s comment. It’s not that I think God is inflicting us with the corona virus to show us who is boss, or worse, that he has sent it to us as some sort of divine punishment. But it strikes me that there is a message here not very different from my Dad’s view of the Mount St. Helens eruption.
I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Suburban people, whether we realize it or not, have it pretty good. Oh sure, we have our struggles and problems, but our lives are, for the most part, extremely comfortable when compared with the lives of many in the world. In fact, many of us act as if we have it all figured out. We work hard to build carefully manicured lives. We strive for perfect homes and perfect lawns. We build safe communities for our families. We seek material success and financial security. Most of us have decent health insurance and safety nets in case something goes wrong. Sometimes, such a life leads to complacency, the idea that it will go on forever. We feel indestructible, as if nothing could ever disturb our well-crafted lives. We become self-sufficient, dependent upon no one, and darn proud of it.
In such environments, God is often forgotten. I mean, who needs God when you have all that? Even Christians, who should know better, fall into the trap. We go to church on Sunday but then take care of everything else on our own throughout the week. We begin to believe the lie of our self-sufficiency. We become like Bart Simpson, who once offered this simple grace: ‘Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.’ When you are comfortable and well cared for, when you have proudly provided for your family and become the captain of your own life, when everything is coming up roses, when you have planned well for the future, and when it seems as if you have nothing to worry about, you tend to get a bit lax with your faith.
Until catastrophe hits.
It can hit in any number of ways, and when it does, everything changes. Right now, the catastrophe is a pandemic. We stand at the precipice of something most of us have never experienced, and we are acting accordingly. Suddenly, our well-manicured lives have been upended, and we don’t know what to do. We race to stores in a desperate attempt to obtain what we need, only to find the shelves bare. We have confronted the limits of our self-sufficiency; that some things are beyond our control. We see the gap between our nightmares and dreams, our hells and our heavens, narrowing. We see that despite all our efforts, we cannot save ourselves from the worst that could happen.
We thought we were so strong, but now know the truth: we are not as strong as we think we are.
And that’s a good thing.
If there is a silver lining in the corona virus scare, or any scare for that matter, it might be that. That we might realize our finiteness. That we might see that we are mere creatures, dependent upon our Creator. That we might realize that our self-sufficiency is a delusion, and that we are, in fact, hopelessly dependent upon the One who is so much stronger than we.
No friends, we are not as strong as we think we are.
But there is One with the strength we need.
I pray that in the days ahead, we all find our rest in Him.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Pastor Brent