The One Place

Wherever you find yourself in this great big world, there’s always a chance of running face first into a natural disaster, or some event that will require divine intervention for you to survive. It’s the reality of the world we live in, and anyone who says they live in the one place where there aren’t any earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic activity, flooding, or typhoons, where they live, just haven’t lived there long enough.

Strange things are afoot, and although we are seeing things such as earthquakes in places where we would expect to see them, we are also seeing them in places we’d never expect. The same goes for tornadoes, flooding, and other things we deem to be natural disasters.

Those who believe they can affect the earth’s core temperature just because they drive their Buick to the local stop-n-go keep insisting that we should stop cows from tooting, planes from flying, and cars from driving to save the planet. The self-importance some people give themselves nowadays is laughable, but they are zealous in their beliefs and fierce crusaders for the extermination of plastic straws and Styrofoam cups. They need to cling to these fairy tales, because of the need to hold out hope that they have some sort of control. They need to believe that by their actions, they can affect the outcome of the world.

 Those of us who have read the Word of God understand that these are just signs of the times. They are things we should be living in anticipation of because along with sings in the sun, the moon, and the stars, there will be perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the seas, earthquakes in various places and various other things we tend to call natural disasters.

Such things will not diminish. They will increase as time goes on, both in frequency and intensity, and it has nothing to do with man-caused global warming, global cooling, climate change, or climate disruption. It’s just a dog shaking off fleas when they start to become an annoyance. It is a reminder of man’s impotence though he thinks himself a god.

It is inevitable that with every tremor, or increased geyser activity, flooding, or tornadic activity, the fear mongers come out of the woodwork, and hysterically insist that you should pack up, move out, do it now, don’t wait until dawn. What they never seem to tell you is where exactly you’re supposed to go, or if their insistence is born of a human reaction to fear, or if God spoke to them regarding you specifically.

Because their hysteria is meant to amplify fear, and amplified fear leads to irrational decisions, some people find themselves in a U-Haul truck five hundred miles from home before they start asking themselves where it is that they’re going.

As someone who hasn’t bought a bunch of land in the middle of the jungles of Paraguay or Uruguay or Belize trying to start my version of Jonestown, let me be the one to tell you that there is only one safe place you can be, and you can’t find it on any map.

It won’t require you to purchase acreage deep in the Amazon or reserve your below ground bunker at the cost of a million dollars; it will require your heart, your obedience, and your faithfulness. The one place you will be safe even in the midst of chaos is Christ. The one place you will have peace even amid uproar is in Christ.

I’m not looking for a place to run to, I’m working toward growing deeper in Him, trusting Him, and serving Him every day, knowing that He can protect, He can sustain, and He can provide. Surrender to God’s will, and your fear will evaporate. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.