Shaking the Earth

I thought I was over indignant reactions to what amounts to crackpot comments from leaders. [Or people who are vociferous enough to be heard...it may very well have nothing to do with leadership.] But for the past several days, I've been unable to get Pat Robertson out of my head! While some friends I've spoken with are amazed I'm shocked at all (after all, what did I expect him to say?), I don't want to become accustomed to the mangled, distorted, misconstrued sides of life.
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I've been writing this blog for over an hour and a half now. I'm stuck. I've started, stopped, backspaced, typed furiously...until I'm just now frustrated with every facile thought that starts its trip across my screen. Without hesitancy, I can say that events like Haiti's earthquake send me reeling into an apathetic coma. My desire for extreme action leads me to complete inaction. What to do? What to do? I honestly considered, on the way home tonight--with my chatty toddler in the backseat--how much I wanted to jump on a plane and head to Haiti. It was the same feeling I had in college when I daydreamed about joining the humanitarian effort in Bosnia. How much of this is some sort of self-aggrandizing fantasy and how much is my genuine heart....I don't know.

But I know this was outside of God's Design. Death, hunger, agony, blame, thirst--these things were not part of the picture when the world began. I mean, we're talking about a God Incarnate who chose to turn water into wine as one of his first demonstrations of his "glory." A God who favored Noah--a needle in a haystack. A Man who went through death, hunger, agony, blame, and thirst. As much as life before the Resurrection exemplified our desperate situation, life after should reflect our Redemption. I mean--believers in Christ are under grace, not the law. The law reflected our separation from God--the extent to which we can't be holy or righteous. Faith in Christ depends upon recognizing our inability to attain righteousness on our own.

And so, I guess I'm in the midst of a theological fog. Do I think God's ways change? No. Neither does his character. But I do think God's story reached a climax when death lost. And this was a turning point. Now, instead of a negotiated religion between men, priests/prophets, and God--it's us and Him. For some reason, this turning point also implies, to me, that God probably doesn't swoop down and wipe out nations anymore. Could he? I can't deny it. But that was a different part of the story.

Psalm 16, 17/22 [morning/evening]
Genesis 6:1-8
Hebrews 3:12-19
John 2:1-12