Maybe it's the nuclear emergency. The images of fire and explosions and dangerous clouds in and around a nuclear reactor. And the haunting specter of something lethal in the air that you can't see or hear or feel. You can see a tsunami. You can feel an earthquake. But the fearful poison of radiation - it can be stealing your life without you even knowing it. Somehow Japan's disaster is making people uneasy around the world. Just look at the sudden run on iodine tablets and and a new discomfort about the nuclear plant down the road.
Some of the brightest minds in Japan are working desperately to avert a tragedy that could scar a generation. From technology to transportation to trade, Japan has demonstrated amazing resourcefulness and industry. But none of that could keep the ground from erupting violently...or a tsunami from erasing part of a nation...or, so far, put the genie back in the broken nuclear bottle.
And maybe that's part of what makes so many of us just a little queasy right now. We've been eyewitnesses to a stunning convergence of forces man cannot control. No matter how smart we are. No matter how creative we are. No matter what resources we have. Being the third most powerful economy in the world (as Japan is) - or the most powerful (as America is) - cannot insulate us from the life-altering waves beyond our control.
And that makes - or ought to make us - think about questions we normally ignore on our daily gerbil wheel. Questions about what really matters...about how we should live the rest of our lives...about what needs changing...about what God is trying to tell us.
We're self-reliant, often self-absorbed, people. Until God sends or allows crises in our lives that shake our world. History's iconic suffering man, Job, said: "So that all men He has made may know His work, He stops every man from his labor" (Job 37:7).
God warned His chosen people, the ancient Israelites: "When you have eaten and are satisfied...be careful that you do not forget the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:11). Oh, but we do. "You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.' But remember the Lord your God..." (Deuteronomy 8:18). And sometimes we don't remember "until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down" (Deuteronomy 28:52).
I know when God arrests my relentless forward momentum, gets my attention and gets the steering wheel back. It's when there's suddenly something I can't fix, I can't control or I can't change. A child or a marriage melting down...a financial or interpersonal tsunami...news from the doctor that rocks our world. That's when I seek Him. That's when I realize how very much I need Him.
On a live radio call-in show yesterday, I was asked my thoughts on a comment by the governor of Tokyo that the tsunami was punishment for being greedy. I responded that I think it's dangerous business to try to guess the motives of an infinite God. But I do believe He uses "out of control" times to get our attention. To show us that any control we think we have in our life is the illusion of control. We live as He gives us breath and die on His timetable. "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
The destiny of every human is defined in six simple words in the Bible, authored by the One who gave us our life in the first place. He says that all things were "created by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). But we drift from Him...we marginalize Him...we're away from Him. Until things spin way beyond our control. That's when people - even nations - may open their hearts to the only real Source of hope and healing and answers. The God who knows all too well about suffering and grieving - who watched His Son die a brutal death on a cross. So we could run to Him instead of run from Him. So He could envelope us in His love.
Cataclysmic times like this - whether global or personal - are like wake-up calls. And we ought to pick up the phone. It might be God on the other end. Reminding us that He's God. And we're not.