Japan
One can take refuge in the reminder of Psalm 46 that God is still God even when the earth moves. When the earth isn’t moving and when the seas are contained, it is not difficult to profess “we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam...” But when disaster strikes and the earth does give way, it is another matter entirely.
I can understand Job’s silence in the face of God’s questions:
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?”
I’d be silent, too.
I take comfort in knowing that God is not defined by the restless crust of a fallen planet. He whose love knows no limit and who transcends the Richter scale will not waste 9.0. “I will be exalted among the nations,” he said - the same nations that are in an uproar. In the midst of disaster and in its aftermath, in the gracious acts of relief workers and ordinary people, among those left speechless and those who weep, Lord, be glorified.