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Subject: June 2, 2005 - The Age-Old Hills Collapsed - Daily Devotional
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 03:04:19 -0700
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June 02, 2005

The Age-Old Hills Collapsed
by John Fischer

It feels like a war zone. The choppers have been hovering overhead now for over three hours. A little while ago I counted seven of them. It’s a thoroughly unsettling sound. Our dogs can’t seem to get comfortable, and I find it hard to concentrate on my work.

It’s eerie to look at the television screen and see images that are being captured by the very helicopters that are making all this noise. This is because I am about five blocks from a landslide in Laguna Beach, California that has so far taken about twenty homes and damaged many more, and they say the land is still moving. Our house is safe on flatter land, but the hillside above us is in chaos. The churning of the choppers is constant, making it impossible to get my mind off of what’s happening.

Natural disasters always make us feel small and unsettled. We suddenly sense the power of forces that are always around us but unnoticed because they are under control. In this case, the most solid construction possible is no match for the massive moving force of earth unleashed. A literal wave of earth has snapped homes in half and cracked concrete driveways like a child breaking a piece of balsa wood in its hands. Moments like this make you worship God out of shear fear, and fear is the right word. Not fear of His meanness or anger, but simply the fear of His power. To not worship God in the face of this kind of force would be the ultimate of foolish arrogance.

But I notice another thing happening also. Disasters bring people together. In my favorite coffee shop where I write every morning I finally met a women I’ve seen here often. Turns out she’s my neighbor a few doors up on the same street. We would not have spoken had this not occurred today and made us partakers of the same awareness. Over this common experience, we connected. Her name is Roberta and she owns the dress shop next door to my regular coffee place. And then she told me something that made my day. She said she has observed me with my son and my unconditional love for him is evident even from a distance. The worst of days can be visited by small rewards.

A little group is now huddled around the coffee shop television. As we watch pictures of homes turned to rubble, a woman is in tears. “Do you live up there?” Roberta asks.

“No, I just feel for all these people who’ve lost their beautiful homes.”

 
John Fischer is the Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals. He resides in Southern California with his wife, Marti and son, Chandler. They also have two adult children, Christopher and Anne. John is a published author and popular speaker.


 

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