I turned on the news and all those stories about Washington budget battles and high gas prices were gone. It was all swept away by the massive tsunami that inundated Japan and then surged across the Pacific. The potential tragedy is compounded now by compromised nuclear plants and the threat of more quakes and even another tsunami. The replayed - and almost inconceivable - scenes of a monstrous wave erasing towns and lives swept away does something to your heart. Especially if you know the Savior Jesus.
As the World Trade Center towers collapsed on that horrific September 11, I found myself crying out to God: "Lord, please help me see what You're seeing here...help me feel what You're feeling." I'm praying that again as the pain in Japan reaches my heart. I know that when we pray, we enter into the ways and working of God - and we can literally touch lives and situations a world away. So, how should we pray?
For me, it's a time to pray for the purposes of God to be fulfilled. I've prayed it a thousand times - "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Now I need to be praying that for Japan. "Your kingdom come, Your will be done in Japan. And in a watching world." There's something much bigger going on than what CNN can show us - God is carrying out a much larger plan. The Bible says that He has a "plan determined for the whole world" and His hand "is stretched out over all nations" (Isaiah 14:26). I can't figure out those purposes, but I can pray they will all happen.
It's also a time to pray for the people of God to be His presence. I've found my heart turning a lot to praying for the people in Japan who belong to Jesus. This could be their moment in a land where they are less than 1% of their nation - a remnant. They live where the light of His Gospel has never taken hold. This is our moment to stand with our Japanese brothers and sisters, praying that they may, in this wrenching moment, become the looked-to people of Japan, powerful representatives of Christ in a moment like no other for their people. O Lord, please make this the Jesus-moment for Japan.
But those prayers for God's people are prayers for me, too. And for all of us who are watching this tragedy unfold. How does God want us to respond? Is this a wake-up call to pray regularly for a nation where so few know the hope of Christ? Does God want me support a Christian ministry that will bring compassionate relief and Christ's Gospel to the people of Japan? Does He want me reach out to Japanese people I know, offering to pray for and with them for their nation and their loved ones?
Beyond "how should I be praying?", I'm asking, "What should I be learning?" I can't get out of my mind the disturbing spiritual reality I see in the heart-rending videos of that tsunami - that there is a deadly "tsunami" that sweeps across this planet every day. And the daily death toll is 150,000 lives, carried into eternity, ready or not.
In Japan, the difference between life and death was the warning system. People knew the tsunami was coming and they had a short time to get to the safety of high ground. For people around the world - and down my street - the warning system is the difference between heaven and hell.
The spiritual warning system of God is the people of God. "We are Christ's ambassadors" (2 Corinthians 5:20). "I have made you a watchman...give them warning from Me...I will hold you accountable" (Ezekiel 3:14-16). This is a time to take urgent action to save the lives around us. I know the high ground is on that hill with the Cross on it, the Cross where Jesus took the full force of the tsunami of God's judgment. I cannot fail the people I know. I am their warning system. I know how they can be safe, whenever, however eternity comes.
Like some of King David's champions, may I "understand my times and know what to do" (1 Chronicles 12:32). Because times like these sound a lot like those "last days" when it's two-minute warning time.