🙏🇳🇵 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗡𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗹: 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝘀 𝗦𝘄𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝘆

If everything we possessed were swept away by a wall of water; if our loved ones were taken in that terrible moment; if our own lives were consumed, would we have hope?

Our hearts cannot fail to have been touched by the dreadful tragedy that has unfolded in Nepal. People who had comparatively little have seen their homes and possessions swept away in a moment. Even more painfully, families have been broken apart. Children, parents and grandparents have been lost. Lives have been changed forever. 💔

In a country where family ties are often stronger than in the West, where grandparents, parents and grown-up children sometimes live under one roof, we cannot begin to imagine the loss and grief.

🙏 Our thoughts and prayers go out to all who are experiencing such intolerable sorrow.

It reminds us that we live in a broken world. Paul tells us that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together” (Romans 8:22). 📖

Sometimes that brokenness confronts us through a terrible disaster. At other times it enters quietly into our own lives, bereavement, heartbreak, a visit to the doctor, treatment, surgery, or some unexpected news that turns life upside down.

Yet this world, although broken, is not chaotic.

There is a great God who remains in control. 🙏

During my own recent time in hospital, when an unexpected diagnosis required urgent surgery, I was greatly comforted by a thought associated with R. C. Sproul: there are no “maverick molecules.” There is not one molecule in this universe outside God’s sovereign control.

And this God is my Father.

The sparrow falls to the ground and He sees it. He is working out His purpose even through those things we cannot understand.

Ultimately, however, our hope is not merely that God will spare us from suffering. Christians suffer too. Christians die. There were Christians among those whose lives were swept away in northern Nepal. For them, that terrible deluge became the means by which they entered into the glorious presence of Christ. They possessed a hope that even the suddenness and terror of that catastrophic moment could not destroy.

✝️ That hope is Christ.

Christ entered this broken world. Christ suffered. Christ endured the cross. Christ died that sinners might have forgiveness, heaven and eternal life. He died and rose again, and has gone to prepare a place for His people, a place of sweet release, where sorrow is ended, tears are wiped away and every broken life is healed.

The Christian hope is infinitely better than the servile fear that the gods are angry and pour out their fury. It surpasses the stoicism which seeks to numb the heart against sorrow. It triumphs over the thought that we are merely unlucky in life, cast adrift upon the winds of time and chance.

Christ gives peace, as He promised so to do:

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27)

Have you this peace today, as you face tomorrow with whatever it may bring for you and your family?

Do you have hope? Do you know Christ? ✝️