I am stunned and speechless.

  This does not happen very often, but after watching one of the many videos from the tragedy in Japan, I don't think there is anything anyone can say. The is destruction is like something out of a movie, but 10 times worse. Here is the 10 min clip. It's unreal how fast their world has been turned upside down by that one life giving element: water.
  Most of us have no frame of reference for what these people are going through. Here in the Midwest there is little fear of our homes being swept away by an ocean. But though I cannot understand, my prayer is that through this catastrophe, Christ's name would be magnified by the believers still living there. Who, even in the face of losing loved ones and their entire livelihoods, can still be at peace in the knowledge of His sovereignty. I pray that they would remember they are not of this world, that in this momentary affliction they would look evermore longingly towards the eternity promised to them by their gracious and compassionate Savior. That these suffering men and women would be a blazing testimony to those around them of the hope that they have in Christ. That they would boldly share one of the few things left in their possession, to those without hope who have nothing. I pray that they would take advantage of every opportunity to love one another in word and deed, bearing with one another.

I think of the last half of Romans 8 -

 Christ Jesus is the one who died―more than that, who was raised―who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.


I also pray for those who do not believe, that they would see the futility of putting their hope in the things of this world. That these events, along with the Holy Spirit, would open their eyes to their own mortality and the fragility of life.