78 Sermon Illustrations on Disaster

June 28, 1983. It was 1:30 in the morning and William Anderson and his girlfriend Shannon Kelly had just been to a Yankees baseball game. They were now traveling on Route 95 on the Mianus River bridge in Connecticut on their way to a friend’s wedding in Maine. Drowsiness was dulling his senses but suddenly every fiber of his being came awake. Two trucks ahead of him had just slammed on their brakes so hard the rubber of their tires was burning. The truck nearest him then jack-knifed, fell on its side, and showered sparks everywhere as it skidded along. Then the taillights suddenly disappeared. Billy had also slammed on his brakes and his car shuddered to a stop. As he peered into the darkness it dawned on him what had happened. Just a few feet in front of his car the highway was gone – a 100-foot section of bridge had fallen 75 feet into the Mianus River. A second’s distraction, or another few miles per hour, and Anderson and his girlfriend would have followed the trucks into the River.

They knew what they had to do. The traffic was very light that early in the morning but other cars were coming up behind them. Billy got out of his car and began frantically waving his hands. A BMW with two men inside approached him and noticed his gyrations. He believes they perceived he had broken down and needed help. They didn’t stop or even slow down, but sped off the precipice to their deaths. They had been warned, but disregarded the warning.

The Mianus Bridge disaster shook up the Connecticut Highway department, indeed the entire highway establishment. The failure of a few steel pins had brought the structure down. Inspectors were fired and billions of dollars were poured into repairs and upgrades.

The event also shook up Billy Anderson. He had been brought up as a church-goer and was comfortable speaking the lingo of Christians. He told a reporter after the accident, “I don’t feel so much lucky as sort of blessed. I think everything happens for a reason. Right now I can’t say why me. I just feel happy to be alive... Some people died that night, we tried to help them and we saw them go over. Afterward, we could hear those men hollerin’ for help.”

But those men were not the only ones who had disregarded a warning. There were things in Billy's life that were not consistent with Biblical Christianity. He was a chemistry graduate student and had lived a life of pleasure at the University of Tennessee. He had become involved in alcohol, drugs and sins of the flesh. His academic achievements caused him to grow in pride of his worldly wisdom. His mind was able to justify anything his flesh wanted to do.

There had been warnings that this lifestyle was DEAD wrong. At one dorm party a student asked him to “remove this when I tell you.” It was an arm tourniquet that the student had applied while he used a syringe to inject his arm with morphine. Billy watched him stick that needle in his veins and inject a solution that made the guy’s eyes roll back in his head. He feebly said, “Go ahead, take it off.” Billy did, and then he got weak and started seeing stars from nearly fainting. He had to escape outside. What he had seen in that dorm room was really who he was.

In 1998, fifteen years after the bridge incident, Billy was in Salt Lake City, Utah, doing a month-long job. The morning and afternoon ride to and from the job site took about 45 minutes, and he rode alone. He came across a Bible Broadcasting Network (BBN) radio station that had actual Bible teachers preaching the Word of God right there in the land of the Mormons. He timed his ride to work in the mornings around his favorite teacher, Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer. Lutzer was teaching on the Judgment Seat of Christ and how the Bible taught that all shall appear before Christ to give an account of our lives. But not all people would appear at this judgment seat. There was another judgment called the Great White Throne Judgment for all who had never accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

This warnings finally sank in. Right there in his vehicle and all alone with God, Dr. William Anderson trusted Jesus Christ and asked him to be his personal sin-bearing Savior. All the rottenness, the pride, the lusts and the self-centeredness, he entrusted Christ to nail to the cross. Billy now knew that his sins were removed as far as the East is from the West.

________

Details taken from the personal testimony of Dr. William Anderson which was emailed to Rev. Holwick, also a 2007 baccalaureate sermon at Gordon College by Rev. Dr. Gordon Hugenberger, and the article “The Couple Who Went To the Edge and Back,” Boston Globe, June 30, 1983.

Some versions of the Mianus River bridge disaster state that the two men in the car that was being flagged down made an obscene gesture at Billy and Shannon as they sped by, but Anderson insists that was not the case.

This year [2017] has had no shortage of tragedy. We have born witness to natural and man-made disasters, disasters formed in the ocean and disasters formed in the sinful hearts of men. Disasters that have destroyed property and disasters that have destroyed lives. Disasters that have stirred at least a semblance of unity and disasters that have brought out the already present division among us.

Given the recent pace at which all these things have taken place, we have been living in constant “response” mode, because just when something tragic happens and runs a few days in the news cycle, there is another disaster to take its place.

It seems, at least to me, that we are living in a period where the foundations are shaking and, in some cases, cracking. So how does one respond to this? How does a Christian respond to these tragedies?

When the foundations shake, we can return to what is true regardless of circumstances. We can know, for example, that the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. We can know that Jesus is still the authoritative ruler of heaven and earth. And we can know that God, even now, is still working all things for the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.

We know these things. But let’s be careful how we wield our theological truths.

In a culture when news is made and reported at a breakneck speed, all of us seem to feel this overwhelming compulsion to respond.

Respond, respond, respond. Post, post, post.

Now as Christians, we do have all kinds of things we might say in the midst of tragedy. Many of these responses are actually true. But in our constant need to respond, it might profit us to ask ourselves what our motivation is.

Is it that we want to offer a word of hope? A consolation of truth? Or in some instances, are we so uncomfortable with deep, real, gut-wrenching pain that we are trying to make ourselves feel better amid the muck and mire?

I’m not saying that the Gospel should not be proclaimed at funerals. And I’m not saying there is never a time to point the grieving back to the words God has given us for comfort. I am saying, however, that truth like this must be wielded carefully and thoughtfully. Lest we bring it down onto the heads of the grieving like a theological sledge hammer, when we compelled by the insatiable need to respond, act as if the circumstances around us are not wreaking real havoc in the real lives of real people.

I think Jesus knew this. He knew that sometimes the best thing you can say is actually nothing. And He knew it better than we do. So when He came in John 11 to the grave of His friend and the grief of Lazarus’ sister Mary, He offered no theological treatise, no simple explanation for death.

There would be another time for that. But not right then. Right then, in His great compassion and wisdom, Jesus offered something equally right and yet infinitely more helpful:

Jesus wept.

The University of Florida believes in being prepared. It has plans for dealing with hurricanes and pandemics. And it appears to be the only school in America that’s planning for a massive night of the living dead. Part of the university’s Disaster Preparedness Plan is an exercise describing how officials would respond to attacks by “flesh-eating, apparently life-impaired individuals.”

“Some employees may prefer weapons such as chain saws, baseball bats, and explosives that have been shown to be effective against zombies,” the plan says. “Given the stress on staff to be anticipated during a zombie outbreak, employees should be given the flexibility to choose their own weaponry thereby diminishing anxiety.”

The Zombie Attack Plan includes footnotes referring to zombie movies such as “Night of the Living Dead” and “28 Days Later” as documentaries. It also has some helpful tips:

* Signs of a possible zombie include “Identification of difficult to kill, flesh-eating perpetrators” and “Documentation of lots of strange moaning.”

* Contrary to myth, “garlic will not stop true zombies, only vampires; and zombies do come out during the day, though they are most active a night because they typically do not like sunlight.”

The “infected co-worker dispatch form” includes a place to list the co-worker’s symptoms such as “references to wanting to eat brains” and “lack of rational thought (this can cause problems confusing zombies with managers).”

At the end of the section, employees must note whether housekeeping was notified to clean up the dead zombie, and human resources has been told to stop salary payments to the zombie and its victims.

Do you have a plan?

[A long testimony of a hiking couple who had a near-death experience in the Grand Canyon, and the spiritual lessons they learned from it.]

Grand Canyon Story, June 2014

Catherine and I had been so excited about our vacation. We planned to backpack for three nights in the Grand Canyon and then hike and camp in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. This was a trip we had both wanted to take even before we ever knew each other. The airplane tickets and trip dates were scheduled for June 2-14, 2014. This would give us enough time to hit the highlights in each of those locations and include some other fun side trips in between. We were both in good physical shape going into the trip; Catherine had been working out and running extensively, and I had just trained for and completed a 60 mile mountain bike race. Neither of us had any reservations or concerns about the backpacking or hiking we planned to do throughout the trip.

On Wednesday, June 4, we arrived at Grand Canyon National Park and camped at Mather Campground on the rim. We had an enjoyable evening looking at and taking pictures of the canyon from the rim, gathering last minute supplies, showering before our 3 night backpacking trip, and eating a good supper. The alarm would be going off the next morning at 3:15, Thursday, June 5 so we were in bed by 8:30-9:00 to get a decent night’s sleep. If I recall, we both slept well until we woke up at 3:15. Once we were up, we were both hurrying around packing our backpacks, tearing down our campsite, and eating a good breakfast of eggs, ham, and cheese. We were at the Hermit’s Rest Shuttle pickup by 4:45 and got on the shuttle at 5:00. The shuttle stopped at all the overlooks along the way, so we didn’t make it to Hermit’s Rest trailhead until 5:45.

After taking a couple of pictures and a bathroom stop, we were on the trail by 6:00. We each carried five liters of water for the day along with food for four days and our camping equipment. The Hermit trail was incredibly beautiful on the hike down. It was very rough, steep, and rocky, but nothing that I felt we weren’t completely capable of. Both of us had been on trails similar to it.

Along the way down, we would stop occasionally to take a picture or to look at something or to rest for a few minutes. We only took two or three breaks of note on the way down, ranging from ten to thirty minutes. At two of them I know for sure that we ate a Clif bar and/or our PB&J burrito or bagel–Catherine had the bagel and I had the burrito. At one of these breaks, since we both had drained our two liter Camelbacks, we refilled with the two liter reservoir each of us had in our packs. The weather felt really nice and dry until about 9:30-10:00 when we began walking in the sun, closer to the bottom of the canyon. The deeper into the canyon we walked, the hotter it got, as was expected.

Sometime around 11:00-11:30 we saw another group of hikers coming our way from Hermit Creek. We stopped and spoke with them for a few minutes and they told us about a really nice pool near the campsite right on Hermit Creek. We thanked them for the suggestion and told them we’d definitely have to get in and cool off. Around 12:00 we made it down to Hermit Creek Campsite, which was still 1.5 miles short of where we had intended to camp at Hermit Rapids, right on the Colorado River.

Once at Hermit Creek, we threw our packs down to take a good rest and eat. At this point Catherine told me she was not feeling well and was tired with a headache. I wasn’t too concerned at the time but encouraged her to rest and cool off by the pool as well as eat and drink. We hung out by the pool for around an hour. I don’t recall how much either of us was drinking while we were there, but I’m sure we both were drinking some. I do know that once we arrived at Hermit Creek we had emptied our Camelbacks again (we now had each drunk four liters). While we were resting at the Hermit Creek pool, Catherine began feeling better and both looked and was acting completely normal. Even though Hermit Creek Campsite looked like a great place to camp, I told Catherine that I’d like to walk on down to Hermit Rapids and check it out since that was what our original plan was. If we didn’t like it, we would just walk back to the Hermit Creek Campsite since it didn’t look like anyone else would be there.

Around 1:00 pm on Thursday, June 5, we left Hermit Creek to walk the 1.5 miles to Hermit Rapids to check it out. Shortly after we began, Catherine began walking very slowly, as if she were tired. We walked approximately three quarters of a mile from Hermit Creek and she was totally out of steam and I could tell at that point that she really felt bad. We made it to a little overhang with shade underneath it to rest until she got to feeling better. I encouraged her to eat some snacks and I believe she ate some prunes and maybe a Clif bar or some nuts. We rested under the overhang for about three hours. During that time, I put a wet bandana around her neck multiple times to keep her cool.

After about thirty minutes, I told her to stay there and I would walk down to Hermit Rapids to determine whether or not we should camp there or go back to Hermit Creek. Hermit Rapids ended up being a neat location right by the Colorado River, but it was incredibly hot there and felt like an oven (+100°F). I walked back up Hermit Creek where Catherine was resting under the overhang and continued to put wet bananas or towels on her to keep her cool. At 4:00, I told her that even though she still felt bad, we needed to walk back up to Hermit Creek Campsite where we would be in a better situation to get her feeling better. There we could set up camp and cool off in the pool at Hermit Creek. When we left the overhang, Catherine slung on her pack and after a few steps I could tell she wasn’t able to carry it without great difficulty. So I took her pack and mine and we began walking the three quarters of a mile back to where we had left a few hours earlier. The whole way Catherine was walking very slowly and I obviously knew that something wasn’t right. My best guess was that she had gotten too hot and just needed rest, water, and to cool down. I do remember thinking that I had never seen her like this before. She has always been a strong hiker and tough to push through minor discomforts (maybe this turned out to be a bad thing on this trip).

Once we got back to Hermit Creek Campsite, we threw down our packs and I went down to cool off in the water while Catherine stayed where we were going to pitch our tent to rest for a few minutes before she came down to join me. About the time I was coming back to camp, she was going down to the water to wash off and enjoy the water. I began setting up camp and getting ready to cook supper while Catherine was washing off in the creek. By the time she came back up to the tent, I had remembered that I had a first aid book in my first aid kit and had been reading it.

I found the section on heat exhaustion (which is what I thought she had) and she had almost every single symptom. It wasn’t until much later that I found out she had a condition I’d never heard of called hyponatremia, or very low sodium, from drinking too much water. Turns out, the symptoms for heat exhaustion and hyponatremia are nearly identical, and my first aid booklet didn’t say anything about hyponatremia.

The treatment my book recommended for heat exhaustion was to rest, drink fluids, and lower the patient’s body temperature by either wrapping her in wet clothing or immersing her in water. After reading that and the following section on heat stroke (which listed horrible symptoms such as seizures, coma, and an 80% fatality rate) I immediately went and soaked handkerchiefs and my long sleeved cotton shirt in the creek and made her wrap up in them. I recall her saying she was cold from this, but I assured her we had to lower her body temperature to get her feeling better. I had her neck wrapped with a handkerchief, water bottles in each of her armpits, another handkerchief or shirt on her chest, my soaked long sleeved shirt wrapped around her legs, along with another cold water bottle between her legs.

By the time I had done this it was roughly 7:00 and we had already eaten supper. When I had cooked earlier, Catherine had told me she was nauseated and didn’t feel like eating, but I forced her to eat the majority of a bowl of Ramen noodles and salmon. Sometime around supper time, I noticed that Catherine was not with it 100% mentally so I began asking her random questions. Her answers were hit or miss at best. This was incredibly alarming to me, but I didn’t know what else to do except continue to let her rest and get her body temperature down. Between 7:00-8:00, Catherine rested either in the tent or sitting on a rock outside the tent, wrapped in the wet shirts and handkerchiefs.

As I kept reading in the first aid booklet, I read more into the heat stroke section and began getting very concerned. In order to avoid being another statistic in the 80% fatality rate it listed, I told her we needed to get her down to the pool in the creek and let her sit in it for a while. She was able to walk to the pool on her own, even though I was helping her so she wouldn’t fall on the rough trail down to it. We soaked her in the pool for roughly 15-20 minutes between 8:00 and 8:30. After doing this, I remember her telling me that she was feeling better and her headache had subsided. She was also responding more normally to the random questions I was asking her. As we laid back down in the tent, I read some scripture to Catherine and prayed for her aloud. I remember being worried enough at that point that I prayed Matthew 21:22 that says “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Even as worried as I was at that point, I trusted that after a good night’s rest she would be fine the next morning. At 9:00, after reading scripture on my phone and praying together, we turned the headlamps off and tried to go to sleep.

At 10:00, Catherine woke me up screaming with her first seizure. It was a full body seizure that lasted roughly one to two minutes. She was foaming at the mouth, convulsing from the seizure, and also bleeding from the mouth from biting her tongue. That was the scariest and worst moment of my life. I had no idea what to do and we were at the bottom of the Grand Canyon by ourselves, miles from anyone, on one of the most remote trails in the canyon, and 8 miles and 4000 feet of climbing from help on the rim. I recall screaming as hard as I could for help, knowing nobody was around or could hear me but I didn’t know what else to do.

At some point during all this it came to me that she was likely having a heat stroke. All I knew to do was read the first aid book for advice and ask our Lord in prayer for His help. The treatment given by the book was to reduce the body temperature as soon as possible and it listed water immersion as a means to reaching that goal. Immediately I opened the tent to begin dragging Catherine out of it where I could carry her to the pool of water. She was completely unconscious and totally limp. I don’t recall if her eyes were open or closed, but I believe open at this point. As I drug her out of the tent, I scooped her up in my arms to carry her at chest level and to try to stabilize her neck because it seemed so loose.

I carried her down the short but steep and rocky trail to the pool of water. It was such a rough trail and she was so awkward to carry, being limp, I believe I fell with her one or two times, continuing to pray to our heavenly Father for strength and help. As I dunked her into the pool of water, even though she was mentally not with me, her body was fighting me physically because of the cool water. I believe this helped to shock her system, to keep her with me. As I forced her to stay in the water instead of collapsing onto the rock next to the pool, she was sort of crying and moaning and didn’t seem to be able to control her body whatsoever. I just kept talking to her and telling her how much I loved her and that it was all going to be okay.

After maybe ten minutes in the water, I pulled her out, keeping her wrapped in the wet clothes and handkerchiefs and we laid down on the rock next to the pool. During this time she actually came to and asked me what had happened, why we were down there, and also told me that her tongue was hurting. At some point I ran back up the tent and got her Thermarest sleeping pad to keep her comfortable along with some water and food so we could stay by the creek where it was cooler. After getting her onto her Thermarest, I just remember talking to her constantly, making sure she was still with me, and constantly praying that the Lord would be with us to heal Catherine and get us out of there.

Around 11:00, as we were lying on the rock by the pool, Catherine began screaming again in her second seizure. These screams were like nothing I’d ever heard before. They were not her screams; they were a horrible, wretched, out-of-her-mind type of screams that I pray I never have to hear again. After another couple of minutes of seizing and the after effects, I drug her back into the water at which point her body began fighting me to get out of it again, even though she was unconscious mentally. I can recall how horrible and scared I felt to force her down into the water because she was again kind of moaning and crying as I kept her in the water. I didn’t know what else to do ... my first aid booklet was out of answers at that point.

After this seizure and holding her down in the water for another ten to fifteen minutes, she was completely unconscious and unresponsive. However, I believe I could get her to open her eyes occasionally as I was talking to her and calling her name. Sometime around this point, I recall telling myself that if she was still with me at 12:00, I would leave and start hiking back to the rim for help.

Until 12:00, I just lay with her, scared to death that she was going to go on to be with the Lord at any minute. I talked to her almost constantly, hoping she could hear me, just saying things to her that a husband would want to tell his wife in such a situation, or praying to the Lord that He would bring us through this and save her physically as he already had spiritually. The verses that I continued praying were Matthew 21:22 and James 5:16 which says, “The effective prayer of the righteous man can accomplish much.” I was praying that, even though I knew I wasn’t righteous on my own aside from Christ, He would hear my prayers and save Catherine’s life.

Around 12:00, I ran back up to the campsite and began getting my stuff together so I could leave and go get help. I was only going to carry food, water, my GPS, and some odds and ends that were still in my pack. I changed clothes, laced one boot up, and, as I began lacing the other, I heard Catherine screaming again with her third seizure. I sprinted back down the hill and saw she was having another full body seizure. After she stopped, I drug her back into the water, absolutely out of options other than to continue to try to decrease her body temperature. Again she was fighting me physically but was not with it mentally. After another ten or fifteen minutes in the water, I pulled her out and continued to try to keep the wet handkerchiefs and shirt on her. At that point I remember being confused as to why this was still happening because she appeared to be shaking from the cold water.

Later on, as she continued to shiver from the cold and I was fairly certain she was dying, I took the wet shirt and handkerchiefs off of her and wrapped her in my sleeping bag that I had brought down at some point. I wanted her to be comfortable. My prayer at this point — I was completely desperate — was that even though I was selfish and wanted to keep my wife with me, if the Lord was taking her home, I prayed that she would go gently and not be in any pain. The little comfort I felt came from knowing without a doubt where Catherine would spend her eternity. I had no question that she would be with God in Heaven and whatever happened I knew she would be better off there, even though I would miss her terribly while I was still on earth.

I monitored Catherine’s pulse and breath continuously to make sure she was still with me. They were both incredibly weak and I had to pay close attention to notice either. I continued to talk to her and would say her name, hoping she was still with me and would open her eyes. I think she did sometimes, but I’m not sure of it now. She seemed so close to death at that point, I just decided to stay with her and lie beside her because I wanted to be with her for that. At one point, I turned my phone on again and tried to call 911, and, as I figured, I had no service. I then turned the phone to airplane mode so the battery wouldn’t run down in case I needed it later and I read scripture to Catherine as we were lying there. If the Lord was going to take her home, I couldn’t think of a better way to go than to the reading of scripture.

At 2:00, as I continued to lie there with her, it hit me that since she was still breathing, I needed to try to get out and get help. So I put my boots on and ran back up to the tent, grabbed my pack, water bladders, and food. One of the things I am so thankful for is that the Lord gave me a focus throughout all this. Even though I had some major come apart times throughout, He kept me focused and gave me clear thinking so I would have enough sense to get myself food and plenty of water for the nearly eight miles and 4000 feet of climbing I had ahead of me on one of the roughest trails in the Grand Canyon. I had to filter water for myself because I wanted to leave Catherine with what we had in case she miraculously woke up on her own.

After filtering water for myself and throwing some snacks in my pack, I knelt down and told Catherine I had to leave her to go get help and that I loved her, but she was still unconscious. Then, at 2:25 a.m., I put on my headlight, grabbed my trekking poles, and started walking. I also had a clear enough mind to know that even though on a good day I might have been able to run out, I needed to pace myself because I knew that I HAD to get out or we didn’t have a chance. At this point, I had been up for almost twenty-four hours.

After nearly forty-five minutes of hard hiking, I began getting light headed and dizzy, to the point that I couldn’t keep walking, so I forced myself to sit down for five minutes to rest. I felt so bad physically that I decided to start alternating walking for fifteen or twenty minutes and resting for five, and to keep that up as long as I could. After I got up and walked maybe fifteen more minutes, I felt even worse than I did before, so I lay down on the trail and allowed myself ten minutes to get it together and get going. At the ten minute mark, I got up and got back to walking. After this point, I kept up the rule of resting briefly every twenty minutes.

The Hermit Trail, as beautiful as it is during the day, is a very rough trail and was especially rough at night by headlamp. At some point during the hike out, I must have missed a switchback. I got off the trail on the side of the canyon on a steep slope with shale everywhere. Once I realized I was no longer on the trail, I made sure I knew where I came from and then began looking around for the trail. It looked like there were cairns everywhere ... but none of them led to the trail. After a number of minutes I began walking up the slope, hoping the trail was above me and eventually got to a point from which I could see the trail. I was elated to find the trail because if I hadn’t been able to find it quickly, I knew I would need to sit there until daylight so I would be more likely to find the trail and less likely to slide off the side of the canyon wall on the shale.

At some points the trail got easier, so I was able to walk for thirty or forty minutes before taking a break. When I finally made it to the old Hermit Trail rest stop, I knew that I would make it. I only had two and a half miles to go. So I refilled my camelback with water and started moving. I was moving at a very good pace at this point because I think my adrenaline must have kicked back in and I knew I was getting close to help.

All along the hike out, I had been praying constantly the simplest prayer: “Lord, help us! You have saved us spiritually, please just save Catherine physically.” I also prayed that I would meet someone on the hike out who could maybe get help quicker than I could, because I was exhausted. Only about fifteen minutes after leaving the old rest shelter, I ran into a married couple and I immediately told them the situation in case they could provide some kind of help. The man replied (and this is a bit of humor in hindsight) “Ok, so I have some bad news and good news. The good news is that I’m a physician, but the bad news is I’m a psychiatrist and haven’t practiced medicine in a long time.” At that point I remember thinking, “Why am I talking to you when I need to get help?!” However, they were incredibly kind and were probably freaked out after hearing the situation. I recall the man suggesting that I could take the electrolyte replacement powder he had and carry it down to her because he thought it would help. I replied that I did not think that I could make it back down at that point I was so exhausted. I knew I could get her help faster by getting to the rim than by hiking back down with some Gatorade powder.

I told them that I needed to keep going to get help and then they asked to pray with me. At that suggestion, I responded with an absolute, “YES.” They offered a very kind prayer to God, asking for His help and then the three of us headed back up the trail to the rim. Not five minutes after we started walking, we met another man, by himself, hiking down with full backpacking gear. I immediately asked him where he was headed and he replied that he was going to Hermit Creek Campsite. I then proceeded to tell him briefly what happened and, in case he got to Catherine before the search and rescue team, to just be with her. I told him she was alive when I left, but didn’t know her condition now.

After leaving this gentleman, the first man I ran into stayed to tell the guy more of the situation while his wife and I headed up the trail. She was walking ahead of me, borderline running and I was right behind her. After a few minutes, she tired and stopped to rest and I kept moving. As exhausted as I was, the Lord allowed me the strength to move fast over the last two miles of trail and I never stopped till I reached the rim.

Once I made it to the rim, I started running and screaming for help. There were several cars around, but I didn’t see a soul. I ran to the two trailers that house park workers there at Hermit’s Rest and began banging on their doors screaming for help. No one came to the door. One of the trailers definitely had someone in there because I could hear loud rock music blaring through the door. No matter how hard I banged on the door or screamed, no one ever came so I kept running up to the shuttle stop, hoping to catch a shuttle for help.

Once I made it to the shuttle stop, I had one bar of service on my cell phone and immediately called 911 for help. The 911 operator finally connected me to the park service at which point they alerted the search and rescue team of the situation. At some point, the operator told me to get on the shuttle and take it back to the main shuttle hub where a ranger would be waiting on me. I was a bit frustrated wondering why I had to do this because I knew the shuttle would take thirty minutes or more to drive the eight miles back to the main hub, but I didn’t have a choice. I alerted the shuttle driver to the situation, he confirmed it with 911, and then I started the ride back to the main shuttle hub. After just a few minutes, the rangers began calling over the shuttle radio looking for me, so the driver turned around and brought me right back to Hermit’s Rest. There were two rangers waiting for me: Joelle Baird and John Kissner. Once I explained the situation to them, Joelle realized it was not a joke, and she called the SAR coordinator to give them more details so the SAR team could be preparing to go to Catherine.

Joelle and John were extraordinarily kind and courteous as we sat together at Hermit’s Rest and the rest of the day as they stayed with me, constantly letting me know what was going on, giving me food and Gatorades, and eventually driving me to Flagstaff Medical Center. They both did an excellent job and I can’t express how appreciative I am to them for talking to me to keep my mind occupied, and keeping me informed throughout the search and rescue process. I’m sure that it was a huge inconvenience for the park to pull two rangers off their normal duties for a day to babysit, but I sure appreciated it.

At some point, I rode with Joelle and John down to the Bright Angel Trail parking area, where my car was parked and where Catherine and I had planned to hike out originally. While we were sitting there, I believe the SAR team got to Catherine, which was sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. Eventually, Joelle was able to find out Catherine’s condition. I recall her being very vague; basically she just said the team was with her and was treating her. I think at this point I just had to ask, “Is she still alive though?” Joelle then told me that Catherine was still alive, but was in very serious condition. Even though I knew Catherine was in serious condition, I was thankful and tremendously joyful to hear she was still alive and with me (can’t quite put this into words).

We stayed there in the parking lot for a while and then I followed them in my car to one of the ranger offices where I met with another park ranger, Peter Maggio, to explain the ordeal. Mr. Maggio was also incredibly courteous and professional (as every single one of the park rangers was that I met). I explained the situation to Mr. Maggio, so he would have an official account of what happened. I had no problem telling them the story because I knew it was important for them to have that information for their legal records and medical information.

While with Mr. Maggio, occasionally more news would come in on Catherine’s condition, including when they transferred her from the SAR helicopter to a med-flight helicopter to be taken to Flagstaff Medical Center. While sitting in the ranger office, they fed me some more food and Gatorades. After a while, one of the medics came in who had treated Catherine in the helicopter transition, CJ Malcom. I am very thankful to CJ for letting me know how Catherine was doing and finally letting me know that he thought she would make it, even though she was still in very serious condition.

Wondering how I’d gotten help, CJ asked me, “Did you find someone rafting the Colorado River with a satellite phone?” I responded that I had walked out that morning and had to leave her at 2:30 a.m. in order to get help. He and the other rangers that hadn’t heard seemed surprised and said they couldn’t believe I had done that. CJ told me that he didn’t know how I was able to leave her, even though that was the only option and she would have certainly died if I had not left to get help. I responded that even though it was the hardest thing I had ever done and hopefully will ever have to do, the comfort I had in leaving her was that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Catherine did die, she would be going home to God in heaven. I explained that Catherine and I are Christians, and not just because of the incident, and I knew God would be faithful, one way or another.

After speaking with Joelle and John, they convinced me to accept their kind offer and drove me to the hospital in Flagstaff. Joelle drove me in the rental and John followed. We arrived at the hospital around 1:00 or 1:30, where I was taken to Catherine in the ER. She was hooked up to an IV and semiconscious. Nothing could express how grateful I was to see her alive. She had a hard time answering the questions posed by Michelle, her ER nurse. Catherine thought for a while that it was 2012, but after some prompting she arrived at 2014. She did, however, remember who the president was and who I was. Every few hours they took her blood to check her sodium and CK levels. Throughout the afternoon, doctors were in and out checking on her and she would only stay awake for very short periods of time.

Catherine was in a lot of pain throughout the day because of her mangled tongue. By 7:30 or 8:00 that evening, they took us to a room in the ICU and were fairly confident that we would be released in the next day or two. She was not critical at this point, as her sodium levels had stabilized, but the doctors in the other part of the hospital did not feel comfortable treating her, so she remained in the ICU.

Finally, by about 9:00 that night, after the nurses had assured me she was stable and I was through delivering the news to the family and close friends, I lay down in a fold out bed beside Catherine and the dam broke. All that I had held together came tumbling apart as my wife slept a few feet away. A little while later, after being awake for more than forty tumultuous hours, I, too, was finally able to sleep.

After the blood test in the middle of the night, Craig, the ICU nurse, came in to tell us her CK (or CPK) numbers had made a significant jump. For the next several days, the doctors continued to monitor her blood, checking the CK levels more and more frequently as the numbers continued to climb. Normal is 140, but her number peaked at 30,000 early Tuesday morning. Dr. Murphy came in and admitted to us that he was not expecting her number to get that high. The number was certainly high enough to be of concern, but Dr. Murphy assured us that Catherine’s muscles felt supple, which was the biggest indication of how she was faring. If her muscles had become firm, that’s when we would have had reason to be worried. Rhabdomyolysis (associated with high CK numbers) can cause kidney damage, muscle damage, and compartment syndrome which sometimes can result in a fasciotomy. Thankfully, Catherine never reached that point, even with her high CK level.

Originally, Catherine’s parents decided not to fly out because we thought she would be released from the hospital quickly. Once her CK numbers started to cause concern, her parents booked a flight and were out there by late Sunday evening. Even though I wanted to be with Catherine in the hospital, I was incredibly relieved to be able to trade with her mom and get a good night’s sleep in the hotel they had booked. Just having her parents out there with us was a comfort to me, as was the continued stream of encouraging prayers and texts from our church family and friends back home. I knew without a doubt that many people were lifting Catherine and myself up in continued prayer the entire time we were in the hospital.

To our great relief, her CK number began to fall by her second blood test on Tuesday. The doctors had told us that she could not be released until her CK level had fallen to at least 5,000, which was a long way to go from 30,000. The number had gone down once before, by only a thousand or so, and then gone back up to reach its final peak, so we were not entirely comfortable until we saw the number start to plummet. At that point, each time her blood was taken, the CK number nearly halved.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had a great surprise: Emily Pearce, Catherine’s EMT in the canyon, along with her doctor colleague, came to talk to us. As soon as she stepped in the room, I knew who she was, and I was overcome with a wave of emotion at seeing my wife’s rescuer. She said she was glad she could find us, as we had moved out of the ICU by this point to the regular part of the hospital. She said that Catherine had been able to give her correct name while in the canyon and that was the only way she was able to find our room.

Emily wanted to hear the events that led up to Catherine developing hyponatremia, so I told my part of the story. Afterwards, she picked up with her part of the story, which began with the helicopter arriving at Hermit Creek. She admitted that she knew it was serious when they flew over Catherine in the helicopter and she didn’t move at all. In their profession, they are extremely safety conscious and are always supposed to wait until the helicopter blades stop moving before exiting the aircraft. This time, as soon as the chopper touched down, her and her team leapt out and ran down to where Catherine was lying by the creek. They knew it was a bad situation and didn’t want to waste any time.

They took her blood and confirmed that she had hyponatremia. Her sodium was dangerously low at 118. Immediately, they hooked her up to a hydrasaline IV and pumped in 300 ml. That revived her enough that she said a few words, including her name. The rescue team treated Catherine in the canyon for about forty-five minutes. The team didn’t feel comfortable carrying her back up the trail I’d carried her down, so they placed her on a flatboard with an EMT beside her and hauled her out of the canyon hanging from a rope under the helicopter. All Catherine remembers from the rescue is one mental image of a helicopter in the sky above her with a long, curved cable tracing a line down to her.

To hear Emily’s portion of what happened to Catherine was chilling, although I’m glad she shared it. According to Emily, Catherine had a number of seizures during the six or so hours that she was alone. Vomit was scattered around her on the rock where she lay and more blood had leaked out onto her face. She confirmed what I had feared: if I had not gone for help when I did, Catherine would have died. Even though I knew I had to leave her in the canyon to get help, it was a relief to hear from Catherine’s rescuer that I had made the right decision, considering it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

On Wednesday morning, the doctor decided to release us from the hospital because Catherine’s CK number had continued to drop and was at 9000. They were confident since it had dropped from 30,000 down to 9,000, it would continue to decrease until back to normal. Even as tired and weak as Catherine still was, she was excited to be getting out of the hospital. Patsy, Steve, and I were too. It was an incredible relief to know that she was going to be fine and should (Lord willing) continue to heal and be back to normal in the weeks ahead. Once out of the hospital, we killed some time in Flagstaff until Thursday afternoon, at which point Catherine and I drove to Las Vegas to catch out flight home Friday morning. We were finally headed home!

In light of the event, I found myself responding to certain scriptures with a new perspective. Not only do the two scriptures I prayed continuously while in the canyon have a profound importance to me, verses such as James 1:2-4 and James 4:13-16 have become part of my life experience as opposed to a line in the Bible that I look to as a good example. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let that endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Despite my confusion, helplessness, and utter sadness at what was happening to Catherine, I truly did feel a sense of peace, which I can consider a type of joy in the midst of that situation. Peace at knowing where my wife would spend eternity is what enabled me to leave her, to go get help. And joy isn’t always a happy experience, the way the world defines it. I felt this kind of joy in the midst of that trial.

James 4:14-16 admonishes, “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’” How true it is that we are but a vapor. I saw how quickly someone who was in great physical condition, healthy, and young could slip dangerously close to death in a matter of hours. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, and this experience really drove that point home for me. If the Lord wills, I will see tomorrow.

As Catherine began to return to her faculties mentally while in the hospital, we discussed how this experience could be used for God’s glory, since we both agreed that was the whole purpose for having gone through it. Catherine understood that the only reason she was granted healing was because there must be some way in which she can glorify the Lord while still on earth. Telling our story is one of those ways. I told her that while hiking out of the canyon, thinking that she might never wake up, I considered what burdens she would be leaving behind that I could see to. The first thing that came to my mind was sharing the gospel with those we’d had concerns about, including members of our families and some of our friends. We have since had many of these discussions, knowing that putting off difficult or awkward conversations is no longer an option, since later may never come, for them or for us. It is our prayer that God would use this story in our lives to glorify Himself and, if He wills, bring someone unto salvation.

In addition, this story has proved to be a way in which we can live out 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 which says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” The Lord certainly sustained me — and Catherine, at least physically — during this trial, and I hope to be able to share that with others in the hope of providing comfort to those who are suffering.

I can honestly say that I feel blessed to have gone through this experience for many reasons. First of all, for the conversations we have had with friends and family. Secondly, for the way in which the Lord has already allowed this story to provide comfort and encouragement to many. Furthermore, I feel a nearness to Christ that I did not know before and a deeper understanding of just how fragile we are, which has affected my outlook on many things. And lastly, I feel an unquenchable, unspeakable joy at the way He chose to answer my prayers, though I know fully it was not something I deserved. The Lord is faithful, and I must trust Him, for our lives are in His hands.

A couple of years ago I was hiking the trials in Allamuchy State Park near Cranberry Lake, New Jersey. Deep in the woods I came upon an upright stone that looked suspiciously like a grave stone. It wasn’t -- it was a memorial to an energetic man. An etched picture on the stone shows him on a mountain bike because that was his passion in life. He once went on a 24-hour bike event in that very park. His favorite expression was, “Livin’ large!”

His day-job was being a securities analyst on Wall Street. He was pretty good at it - he won an award for being the third best in the industry at what he did. Forbes magazine did a long interview with him. His name was Dean Eberling. His office was on the 58th floor of World Trade Center, tower 2.

Early on September 11, 2001, he heard the first plane hit the other tower. Dean and 26 of his coworkers got into an express elevator. It started to go down when the second plane struck the floors directly above them. The elevator cable was severed and the car started to fall. Emergency brakes stopped it just above the concourse level.

Dean and another man pried an 8-inch gap in the door near the floor of the buckled car. Flames started coming down the elevator shaft. Dean and the other man helped two women slowly crawl through the gap in doors.

Dean’s chance would never come. As firefighters attempted to cut open the door with a chainsaw, the building collapsed. He was only 44 years old. A few of his friends hauled the 1,000-pound monument out to the lonely mountain bike trail.

Life is short. Seize each day and make it count.

________

Adapted from "Remembering September 11, 2001: Dean P. Eberling Obituary" (originally published on March 8, 2003, in The New York Times), , and "Phoenix Rising, the legacy of the 89th floor," by Shawn McCarthy, Globe and Mail, September 9, 2006, .

When the ground began to shudder uncontrollably in the world’s busiest train station, we ran for our lives. Andrew Pateras on surviving the record-breaking earthquake in Japan.

Andrew Pateras is a photojournalist. In 2011 he was on assignment in Japan and was in the Toyko train station, the busiest in the world. It was 3:00 in the afternoon and he was surrounded by thousands of people as he stood in line to get a ticket for a bullet train. Just then he felt a slight movement in the ground under his feet. He ignored it. Then a violent shudder went through the station. Things fell to the ground, overhead signs were swaying. An old man next to him smiled and said one word: “Earthquake.”

Andrew ran for the door, about 60 feet away. The ground was shaking so violently that it was difficult to run in a straight line. He said it was like trying to sprint across the deck of a ship being tossed by swells. With a pounding heart he reached the street and headed for a large park surrounded by skyscrapers. Hundred-story buildings swayed like palm trees in the wind. His mind replayed the image of the World Trade Center crashing to the ground.

The noise was incredible. He could hear the buildings creak and groan as they shook in their foundations. He started to shoot photos of everything that was happening. He would find out later that the quake was a magnitude 8.9, the strongest earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history.

Many things can shake our world. It can be natural events like earthquakes or hurricanes, or human events like wars or terrorist attacks. King David said that "though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea," he would not be afraid. He had a God who was a refuge for him. Where would you go when disaster strikes?

________

Adapted by David Holwick from Andrew Pateras, "My Earthquake Experience in Tokyo," March 11, 2011, .

Have you built your underground bunker yet?

Don’t wait too long. If hurricanes and earthquakes don’t get you, terrorists and North Korean nukes might -- not to mention lone gunmen randomly spraying bullets. We live in fearful times.

My bunker question isn’t entirely facetious. The survivalist movement, which has been around since Cold War days, has morphed into the trendier “prepper” movement. There was even a cable TV show about it (“Doomsday Preppers”).

Suburban moms anxious about the apocalypse seem to embrace the “prepper” moniker better than “survivalist,” which evokes images of wild-eyed, bearded guys in camo gear running around in the woods. “Prepper” moms can stock freeze-dried food and water in their safe rooms at home without feeling weird. A whole retail niche has developed around the trend. Costco, for example, offers a one-year emergency food kit. Price: $1,000, shipping included. Be prepared to eat a lot of granola, canned vegetables and canned fruit.

“Lurking beneath our well-socialized exteriors is an intense, primitive need to protect ourselves and those around us from existential threats,” Andrea Palpant Dilley writes in “Confessions of a Christian Prepper,” a recent article in Christianity Today. “One way or another, we all have to contend with the fundamental tension between readiness and relinquishment: When do we accept our mortality, when do we fight against it, and when do we give it up to God’s providence?”

To prep or not to prep -- that is the question. Surrendering to God’s providence, customary in past generations when death visited more frequently, seems quaint in our day. We want to eliminate all threats, real or imagined.

This, at least in part, drives the relentless campaign to create “safe spaces” on college campuses and “protect” students from “dangerous speech.” Four in 10 American millennials (ages 18-34) now think the government should be able to regulate offensive speech, according to the Pew Research Center.

So much for the First Amendment. If we fear mere words that much, how deeply do we fear actions?

Not only do parents want to protect their kids from any potential danger, we demand that social institutions do the same for the rest of us, to the point of absurdity. There are plenty of real victims in our society, but a generalized culture of grievance and victimhood enables everyone to feel offended by -- and fearful of -- just about everyone else.

“Fear, in all its forms, is at the heart of these issues -- fear of failure, ridicule, discomfort, ostracism, uncertainty,” psychologist Clay Routledge writes in The New York Times. “Of course, these fears haunt all of us, regardless of demographics. But that is precisely the point: Our culture isn’t preparing young people to grapple with what are ultimately unavoidable threats. Indeed, despite growing up in a physically safer and kinder society than past generations did, young Americans today report higher levels of anxiety.”

Why this nameless fear?

There are many causes: rapid change, loss of trust in traditional authorities, economic uncertainty, seemingly endless acts of violence and terrorism -- magnified by 24/7 media. We are all susceptible to it.

But if there is any place that should be immune to fear, it is the heart of a Christian believer.

Do not fear, the Lord tells us -- again and again, from Genesis to Revelation. His will shall be done. His Spirit shall lead us to victory. His glory shall be revealed. His presence shall comfort and protect us, no matter how terrible things seem. His purpose shall be fulfilled. Only be “strong and courageous,” He repeatedly commands the fearful Israelites as they venture into an enemy-filled Promised Land (see the Book of Joshua).

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity,” the apostle Paul tells his young disciple Timothy, “but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7, NASB).

Yet many evangelical churches seem fearful these days. Fear of being overwhelmed by a hostile culture. Fear of losing liberty. Fear of outsiders and enemies, real or imagined. Fear of immigrants and refugees -- the very people we should be welcoming and evangelizing in an age of unprecedented global migration.

Build a wall, the alarmists say -- around our borders, our culture, our churches. Retreat into tribal enclaves. Even if some sort of Christian “Fortress America” were possible, is it what God intends? What about going to the nations, including the nations among us?

“The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside; I will be killed in the streets!’” (Proverbs 22:13, NASB). Fear is a convenient cover for laziness, disobedience and distrust of God.

“Quite frankly, I don’t always trust God to provide,” Dilley, the prepper mom, admits. “I believe in the power of evil to overcome, and I’m determined to do everything I can to fend it off on my own.... [But] I’m called to pivot outward, toward my neighbors.”

Who are our neighbors? Do we fear them -- or love them?

When was the last time you prayed for someone whose life was running smoothly? We usually pray for uncommon things, those that are out of the ordinary. Christians need to pray for those who are strong in the faith, those who don't seem to "need" prayer. Paul sometimes encourages us to pray

for specific needs, but in nearly every letter he tells us to pray for the saints' growth and strength.

Across the nation and throughout the world, people from all walks of life have asked one question in recent days: How could a loving God allow such a terrible tragedy?

It is a question that must be handled with care, and one that Scripture alone answers correctly, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said during a special chapel sermon at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The seminary president, speaking two days after terrorist attacks killed thousands in New York City and Washington, D.C., said that the tragedy of September 11 will offer Christians countless opportunities to spread the gospel, share their faith and minister to those in need. During those times, Mohler said, believers should be ready to tackle what he called "the greatest theological challenge we face."

"People all over the world are demanding an answer to this question," Mohler said. "It comes only to those who claim that God is both mighty and good. How could a good God allow this to happen? How can a God of love allow killers to kill, terrorists to terrorize and the wicked to escape without a trace?

"No superficial answer will do."

Two answers, Mohler said, fall short of a biblical explanation for evil. First, he said, it is unbiblical to deny God's omnipotence, omniscience and sovereignty over all of creation.

"Not even a sparrow falls without his knowledge," Mohler said. "He knows the number of hairs upon each our heads. God rules and reigns over all nations and kingdoms and principalities. Not one atom, not one molecule of the universe is outside his active rule."

However, Mohler noted, the Bible also says that God is not the author of evil.

"God is absolute righteousness, unconditional love, goodness and justice," Mohler said. "Most errors related to this issue occur because of our human tendency to impose an external standard -- a human construction -- of goodness by which we will measure God. But good does not so much define God as God defines good."

Thus, the answer to the problem of evil lies somewhere in the middle of these two erroneous explanations, Mohler said.

"Between these two errors the Bible points us to a radical affirmation of God's sovereignty as the ground of our salvation and the assurance of our own good -- our own future," Mohler said. "We cannot explain why God has allowed sin, but we understand the Bible to declare clearly that God's glory is more perfectly demonstrated through the victory of Christ over sin. We cannot understand why God would allow sickness and suffering, but we must affirm that even these realities are rooted in sin and its cosmic effects."

To some, the explanation may raise as many questions as it answers. It's a mystery, Mohler admitted, but Christians must never forget that God is in control.

"How does God exercise his rule?" he asked. "Does he order all events by decree, or does he allow some evil acts by his mere permission? We find ourselves using both of these words. This much we know -- we cannot speak of God's decree in a way that would imply him to be the author of evil, and we cannot fall back to speak of his mere permission, as if this allows a denial of his sovereignty and active will."

Mohler quoted the apostle Paul, who writes in Romans 8:28, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."

"As Paul affirms for the church, God's sovereignty is the ground of our hope, the assurance of God's justice as the last word and ... the assurance of God's loving rule in the lives of his people."

Mohler preached from Luke 13:1-9, where Jesus tells the story of a tower in Siloam that had fallen and killed 18 people. Jesus asks those who are listening, "Do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Jesus then tells the parable of the fig tree.

"This is one of those difficult passages of Scripture," Mohler said. "In it, tragedy and theology intersect in the teaching of Jesus and end up in a parable. The background events are genuinely tragic. The context is a call to repentance -- individual and national."

Jesus' call to repent applies to modern-day America as well, Mohler said.

"Jesus took the occasion of the tower's fall and turned it into a call for individual and national repentance," he said. "Given our assurance that God is in control and working even in this unspeakable tragedy to accomplish his will, dare we not see the horrors in New York and Washington as an opportunity for America -- and for Americans -- to repent as well? ... We need to repent of our national arrogance. We need to repent of our national depravity. We need to repent of our rebellious spirit against God's law and God's sovereignty."

Mohler said that it would be arrogant to claim that he -- or anyone -- has special knowledge of what God is doing through the recent tragedy. However, he said, "This biblical text explains that all such events are signs of our need for repentance. Thousands must have died in New York and many died in Washington. Like the Galileans in Jerusalem and the victims in Siloam, many may have died impenitent and unrepentant.

"...This is a time for national and personal repentance, and in the midst of this national horror, Christians will face unprecedented opportunities to tell the truth, to speak the word of the gospel. This great tragedy ... may produce a softening in the American heart, or it may produce a hardening. Let us pray that it will produce a softening. Let us pray that there may be yet time for us to reach many of our fellow citizens with the gospel."

This year [2017] has had no shortage of tragedy. We have born witness to natural and man-made disasters, disasters formed in the ocean and disasters formed in the sinful hearts of men. Disasters that have destroyed property and disasters that have destroyed lives. Disasters that have stirred at least a semblance of unity and disasters that have brought out the already present division among us.

Given the recent pace at which all these things have taken place, we have been living in constant “response” mode, because just when something tragic happens and runs a few days in the news cycle, there is another disaster to take its place.

It seems, at least to me, that we are living in a period where the foundations are shaking and, in some cases, cracking. So how does one respond to this? How does a Christian respond to these tragedies?

When the foundations shake, we can return to what is true regardless of circumstances. We can know, for example, that the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. We can know that Jesus is still the authoritative ruler of heaven and earth. And we can know that God, even now, is still working all things for the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.

We know these things. But let’s be careful how we wield our theological truths.

In a culture when news is made and reported at a breakneck speed, all of us seem to feel this overwhelming compulsion to respond.

Respond, respond, respond. Post, post, post.

Now as Christians, we do have all kinds of things we might say in the midst of tragedy. Many of these responses are actually true. But in our constant need to respond, it might profit us to ask ourselves what our motivation is.

Is it that we want to offer a word of hope? A consolation of truth? Or in some instances, are we so uncomfortable with deep, real, gut-wrenching pain that we are trying to make ourselves feel better amid the muck and mire?

I’m not saying that the Gospel should not be proclaimed at funerals. And I’m not saying there is never a time to point the grieving back to the words God has given us for comfort. I am saying, however, that truth like this must be wielded carefully and thoughtfully. Lest we bring it down onto the heads of the grieving like a theological sledge hammer, when we compelled by the insatiable need to respond, act as if the circumstances around us are not wreaking real havoc in the real lives of real people.

I think Jesus knew this. He knew that sometimes the best thing you can say is actually nothing. And He knew it better than we do. So when He came in John 11 to the grave of His friend and the grief of Lazarus’ sister Mary, He offered no theological treatise, no simple explanation for death.

There would be another time for that. But not right then. Right then, in His great compassion and wisdom, Jesus offered something equally right and yet infinitely more helpful:

Jesus wept.

Have you built your underground bunker yet?

Don’t wait too long. If hurricanes and earthquakes don’t get you, terrorists and North Korean nukes might -- not to mention lone gunmen randomly spraying bullets. We live in fearful times.

My bunker question isn’t entirely facetious. The survivalist movement, which has been around since Cold War days, has morphed into the trendier “prepper” movement. There was even a cable TV show about it (“Doomsday Preppers”).

Suburban moms anxious about the apocalypse seem to embrace the “prepper” moniker better than “survivalist,” which evokes images of wild-eyed, bearded guys in camo gear running around in the woods. “Prepper” moms can stock freeze-dried food and water in their safe rooms at home without feeling weird. A whole retail niche has developed around the trend. Costco, for example, offers a one-year emergency food kit. Price: $1,000, shipping included. Be prepared to eat a lot of granola, canned vegetables and canned fruit.

“Lurking beneath our well-socialized exteriors is an intense, primitive need to protect ourselves and those around us from existential threats,” Andrea Palpant Dilley writes in “Confessions of a Christian Prepper,” a recent article in Christianity Today. “One way or another, we all have to contend with the fundamental tension between readiness and relinquishment: When do we accept our mortality, when do we fight against it, and when do we give it up to God’s providence?”

To prep or not to prep -- that is the question. Surrendering to God’s providence, customary in past generations when death visited more frequently, seems quaint in our day. We want to eliminate all threats, real or imagined.

This, at least in part, drives the relentless campaign to create “safe spaces” on college campuses and “protect” students from “dangerous speech.” Four in 10 American millennials (ages 18-34) now think the government should be able to regulate offensive speech, according to the Pew Research Center.

So much for the First Amendment. If we fear mere words that much, how deeply do we fear actions?

Not only do parents want to protect their kids from any potential danger, we demand that social institutions do the same for the rest of us, to the point of absurdity. There are plenty of real victims in our society, but a generalized culture of grievance and victimhood enables everyone to feel offended by -- and fearful of -- just about everyone else.

“Fear, in all its forms, is at the heart of these issues -- fear of failure, ridicule, discomfort, ostracism, uncertainty,” psychologist Clay Routledge writes in The New York Times. “Of course, these fears haunt all of us, regardless of demographics. But that is precisely the point: Our culture isn’t preparing young people to grapple with what are ultimately unavoidable threats. Indeed, despite growing up in a physically safer and kinder society than past generations did, young Americans today report higher levels of anxiety.”

Why this nameless fear?

There are many causes: rapid change, loss of trust in traditional authorities, economic uncertainty, seemingly endless acts of violence and terrorism -- magnified by 24/7 media. We are all susceptible to it.

But if there is any place that should be immune to fear, it is the heart of a Christian believer.

Do not fear, the Lord tells us -- again and again, from Genesis to Revelation. His will shall be done. His Spirit shall lead us to victory. His glory shall be revealed. His presence shall comfort and protect us, no matter how terrible things seem. His purpose shall be fulfilled. Only be “strong and courageous,” He repeatedly commands the fearful Israelites as they venture into an enemy-filled Promised Land (see the Book of Joshua).

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity,” the apostle Paul tells his young disciple Timothy, “but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7, NASB).

Yet many evangelical churches seem fearful these days. Fear of being overwhelmed by a hostile culture. Fear of losing liberty. Fear of outsiders and enemies, real or imagined. Fear of immigrants and refugees -- the very people we should be welcoming and evangelizing in an age of unprecedented global migration.

Build a wall, the alarmists say -- around our borders, our culture, our churches. Retreat into tribal enclaves. Even if some sort of Christian “Fortress America” were possible, is it what God intends? What about going to the nations, including the nations among us?

“The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside; I will be killed in the streets!’” (Proverbs 22:13, NASB). Fear is a convenient cover for laziness, disobedience and distrust of God.

“Quite frankly, I don’t always trust God to provide,” Dilley, the prepper mom, admits. “I believe in the power of evil to overcome, and I’m determined to do everything I can to fend it off on my own.... [But] I’m called to pivot outward, toward my neighbors.”

Who are our neighbors? Do we fear them -- or love them?

One author tells the story of Ed and Nancy Huizinga, a family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who in December 1995 while at church rehearsing for the annual Christmas Festival of Lights program, had their home burn to the ground. But that wasn't their only tragedy that year. Just three months earlier, Nancy's long-time friend, Barb Post, a widow with two children, died of cancer. Nancy and Ed had taken her two children, Jeff and Katie, into their home as part of their family, something they had promised Barb they would do. So when Ed and Nancy's house burned to the ground just before Christmas, it wasn't just their home that was lost; it was the home of two teenagers who had already lost their mother and father.

As circumstances unfolded, irony went to work. The tragedy that forced the family from their home allowed Jeff and Katie to move back to theirs. Since their home had not yet been sold following their mother's death, they and their host family moved in there the night after the fire.

On the following Saturday, neighbors organized a party to sift through the ashes and search for anything of value that might have survived. One of the first indications they received of God's involvement in their struggle came as a result of that search. Somehow a piece of paper survived. On it were written these words:

“Contentment: Realizing that God has already provided

everything we need for our present happiness.”

To this family this was like hearing God speak from a burning bush. It was the assurance they needed that He was there and He was not silent.

While the world might view this as a senseless tragedy, deserving of resentment, Nancy and Ed have seen God reveal Himself to them and refine them through this fire as He pours out a full measure of grace and peace.

________

Charles Swindoll, HOPE AGAIN, Word Books, October, 1997, page 21

In Jeremiah 29:11-13 the Lord boldly declares: "I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Those verses have never been truer for me than they were on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

My office was ground zero for the jet that hit the Pentagon. My office was totally destroyed, most of my co-workers were killed or severely injured, but I was spared. On that particular day, I was at my apartment waiting to receive a baggage shipment.

I checked into the Pentagon on Sept. 4 for an assignment as the public affairs officer for the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Personnel. I was assigned to a newly renovated wing of the Pentagon. I was overwhelmed by the strangeness of the Pentagon -- who does what, what my role is.

I went through the process of checking in and meeting everybody I would work with and completed my processing requirements by Monday, Sept. 10. As part of my arrival requirements, I worked with the Transportation Office at a nearby military installation for delivery of my household goods from Hawaii.

They initially set up the delivery for my shipment to be on Sept. 6. When I called back to check the confirmation of that date, the person I spoke to said that the previous clerk had dropped the ball and I would have to wait a week to get my goods delivered. I was a little angry, but I resolved to take it in stride and make another appointment.

Little did I know that the date I chose for the delivery would be a decision that saved my life. I thought that I might have to meet my new boss, Lt. Gen. Maude on Monday, Sept. 10, so I chose to have my baggage delivered on Tuesday, Sept. 11.

I was sitting on my balcony watching and waiting for the moving company truck that was to deliver my baggage to arrive at 9:32 a.m. when I heard what I thought was a sonic boom. Then I heard fire trucks and ambulances rushing through the streets. I turned on the TV and was appalled to see that an American Airlines jet had crashed into the Pentagon. My shock continued as I watched the news come in about the World Trade Center in New York. I was watching when the twin towers came crashing down. My reaction was that I was watching the end of the world.

Then the most tragic news of all hit me like a hammer blow. The office where I work was the impact point of the crash. I learned that my boss and many of my co-workers were unaccounted-for and that if I had been at work that day I would not be writing this now.

What I have come to realize is that I have been given the ultimate gift from God -- my salvation. If I had been there that day, I would have been ready for God to take me home. I also realize that I have been given a second gift, that God miraculously spared my life that day. I am truly grateful to Christ who gives me strength.

Some people describe me as lucky and that I was saved by a coincidence, but I believe that I am blessed. I know who saved me and his name is not luck. I do not believe that anything happens by accident. I believe that God spared me for his purposes; I have to be still and let him reveal his purpose for my life. Until that happens, I will tell everybody that I can about my miraculous gift.

I pray for all those people in our country who are searching for answers, that they will find the ultimate answer I have found -- Jesus Christ. The Bible says that no man knows the time place of his death; therefore, be watchful and sober for the Lord will come like a thief in the night. My prayer is that those who were not ready to meet their maker found Jesus in those last few moments of their lives just like the thief on the cross.

In closing, I pray that every man, woman, boy and girl who reads my words will consider the meaning of life. I pray that after their careful and prayerful consideration they, like me, will give their life over to Jesus Christ and trust him as their Lord and Savior. I promise that if they do that they will have the promise that Jesus gives everyone, that they will have life and have it more abundantly.

I also pray that every Christian would be bold in their own witness. I believe that we have a narrow window of time to reach the lost because people are now open to the Word and because Jesus Christ is coming soon. We may have been born for such a time as this.

_______________

Childress is the public affairs officer for the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Personnel. He is a member of the First Baptist Church of North Spartanburg, S.C., and the brother-in-law of Keith Andrews, pastor of Padgett's Creek (S.C.) Baptist Church.

*

This year [2017] has had no shortage of tragedy. We have born witness to natural and man-made disasters, disasters formed in the ocean and disasters formed in the sinful hearts of men. Disasters that have destroyed property and disasters that have destroyed lives. Disasters that have stirred at least a semblance of unity and disasters that have brought out the already present division among us.

Given the recent pace at which all these things have taken place, we have been living in constant “response” mode, because just when something tragic happens and runs a few days in the news cycle, there is another disaster to take its place.

It seems, at least to me, that we are living in a period where the foundations are shaking and, in some cases, cracking. So how does one respond to this? How does a Christian respond to these tragedies?

When the foundations shake, we can return to what is true regardless of circumstances. We can know, for example, that the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. We can know that Jesus is still the authoritative ruler of heaven and earth. And we can know that God, even now, is still working all things for the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.

We know these things. But let’s be careful how we wield our theological truths.

In a culture when news is made and reported at a breakneck speed, all of us seem to feel this overwhelming compulsion to respond.

Respond, respond, respond. Post, post, post.

Now as Christians, we do have all kinds of things we might say in the midst of tragedy. Many of these responses are actually true. But in our constant need to respond, it might profit us to ask ourselves what our motivation is.

Is it that we want to offer a word of hope? A consolation of truth? Or in some instances, are we so uncomfortable with deep, real, gut-wrenching pain that we are trying to make ourselves feel better amid the muck and mire?

I’m not saying that the Gospel should not be proclaimed at funerals. And I’m not saying there is never a time to point the grieving back to the words God has given us for comfort. I am saying, however, that truth like this must be wielded carefully and thoughtfully. Lest we bring it down onto the heads of the grieving like a theological sledge hammer, when we compelled by the insatiable need to respond, act as if the circumstances around us are not wreaking real havoc in the real lives of real people.

I think Jesus knew this. He knew that sometimes the best thing you can say is actually nothing. And He knew it better than we do. So when He came in John 11 to the grave of His friend and the grief of Lazarus’ sister Mary, He offered no theological treatise, no simple explanation for death.

There would be another time for that. But not right then. Right then, in His great compassion and wisdom, Jesus offered something equally right and yet infinitely more helpful:

Jesus wept.