The earthquake in Haiti was a wakeup call to the world. The question on the mind and lips of many is, can something like that really happen? And since it happened there, could it happen here? Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as the result of an event that only took a few minutes to occur. The tragedy of Haiti has made such an impact upon the world that relief is pouring in from every sector of the globe. To see images of recently orphaned children whose future was already bleak because of the adverse poverty of the nation merely escalated the cause.

Graphic pictures leapt off the screen and into our lives when we faced the relatives of the victims a few days ago. What could we tell them? As Haitian pastors living in Atlanta gathered together at our request to tell their stories, we could feel their pain. Although they were away from the scene, from their families, and their native land, their hearts were there. How many of their family and friends, who bade them farewell when they embarked upon the journey to America, saw them for the very last time? And unfortunately, there is the lingering impossibility for closure because the graves of their loved ones were the dumping grounds for many who remain unidentified.

I have preached many funerals in my lifetime. I have stood at the graves of weeping widows with orphaned children. I have looked into their eyes and could read their grim and desperate thoughts of uncertainty that were in proximity to their pain. “What can you tell me now preacher?” “Where is God when I need Him the most?” We cannot glaze over these real challenges. A word is needed that surpasses pacification and consolation. God is yet standing in the shadows awaiting the opportunity to be heard, subtly speaking through circumstances that remind us of our vulnerability. “It is because of His tender mercies that we are not consumed. Great is His faithfulness.” Nothing but His mercy stands between what happened to them and what could easily happen to us.

Uncertain calamities do not always come gradually, but often strike suddenly. They awaken us from a state of slumber and make us aware that we must always be in a state of preparedness. After 9/11, the government began taking precautionary measures to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. But on Christmas Day, a failed attempt on a U.S. Commercial airplane exposed areas of vulnerability that yet remained. Nothing done alone, which is done without God’s guidance and assistance, is sufficient. The “Fault Lines” in our lives, just as the “Fault Lines” underneath the surface of the earth, stand to remind us of the inevitability of another earthquake. The question is when will it happen and what will we do differently that we failed to do this time?

We should not blame the victims for their calamities, nor blame God, but rather blame ourselves. We have made decisions that have affected every nation of the world and are offensive to God. The Church must repent of deflecting her emphasis away from God and directing it towards other things. The compassion demonstrated by the world in this crisis must be seen and known as compassion that comes from its Source which is Jesus Christ. Just as a nation can be destroyed in one day, a nation can be birthed in one day as well. Before the coming of the Lord, the birth pangs will signal the dawning of a new day! God is alive, God is still in control, and God alone is to be worshipped. This is the antidote to uncertainty, and the reassuring hope in the promised return of the Prince of Peace.