Did you feel it? I was lying in bed awake (very unusual for me at 11pm). There was a big clap of thunder and the house shuddered. I thought it was unusual that it didn’t stop shuddering for about 10 seconds; then I realized that I had just experienced my first earthquake. It was only a 4.7 on the scale, but the earth had trembled. Things were pretty wild above ground as well. Rain coming down in sheets, wind screaming, thunder crashing, lightening firing up the sky…. I usually don’t get scared in bad weather, but I confess I don’t really have a taste for earthquakes and tornados all at once.
It made me think of a passage in Romans:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedomof the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. -Romans 8:18-24
There is something glorious about an earthquake and a thunderstorm happening at the same time, but it is only creation groaning in anticipation for something even more glorious—us. When our bodies are redeemed in the resurrection and our glory is revealed we’ll make an earthquake in a thunder storm seem drab in comparison. I’m looking forward to it.
Brian
