the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Daily Devotionals
Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
Tsunami is the Anglicising of an Oriental term for a tidal wave. Tsunamis are caused by a seaquake or volcanic eruption. The tsunami that recently hit the Thailand area was triggered by a massive earthquake the likes of which had not been felt for many years. The devastation is disheartening. Tsunamis develop so suddenly, move so swiftly and reach so far inland that the only escape is not to be within its reach. The power of the water as it ebbs and flows is so great that people cannot resist its force and are swept away.
The deadly nature of the one in Thailand and the carnage that it is leaving in its wake are all too unpleasant a reminder that we are not in charge. We are nothing more than players in a game that has been repeated for generations and millennia. We have no power over the forces that flow around us. All we can do is learn to live life so that its devastation does not seal our eternal fate against us.
Life is a choice. It is not an irrestible force to which we are inexorably bound. How we choose to live life need not be affected by the tsunamis that come. Rather, how we respond to those tsunamis, those torrential waves of emotional distress that strike us often, can determine where we spend eternity. When struggles hit, and they will, we can either be swept away by them and carried into the depths of despair, or we can respond with the calm assurance that God is greater than any problem we encounter.
What's sad is that that assurance is a well known passage of scripture in God's Word. Most people use it for a completely different application. No, I am not talking about the "God only gives us what we can bear" scripture, though that is truly applicable. I am talking about the calm assurance that despite the difficulties God is there and still loves us.
" 'For your sake we are killed all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.' Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:36-39 Nothing, especially not life's tsunamis. God will always be there for us.
'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' Copyright 2010 © Tom Kelley. 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with their complete bio and a link to https://www.studylight.org/ 2) 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.
