Finding God in the Quiet After the Storm

In the book of First Kings the prophet Elijah sought to find God. First there was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks, but God was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake; but God was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake fire; but God was not in the fire. And after the fire a still small voice.

Oftentimes, like Elijah, we do not find God in the vast winds, fierce fires or powerful earthquakes but rather in the quiet response that follows. While we were challenged in seeing God in the earthquake that devastated the coastal areas of South Asia and affected millions of human beings, I imagine that most of us clearly saw God in the still small voice of compassion. We saw God in the quiet response of children who reached their hands into their piggy banks to help, in the hundreds of thousands of citizens who anonymously clicked financial aid through their computers, and in the multitude of nations who extended generous packages of international aid.

While I was struck by the bountiful waves of charity that were offered to help soften the pain that the Tsunami left in its wake, I was struck even more by how the tragedy brought people together. It united our world community. As people donated from points all across the globe, no one asked about the race or the religious background or the political beliefs of those receiving aid. Aggressive enemies, who had previously battled one another in a civil war, sat down with civility, as together they planned the distribution of relief and repaired roads.

Tragedy has a way of bringing people together. This is the case not only for national and international disasters, but for personal catastrophes as well. When life throws us its hardest hits, people have a way of letting go of the petty, of forgiving and forgetting past disputes, of connecting with one another in order to heal, thereby recognizing that life itself is one of the most important things worth fighting for.

When illness and death touch the young or tragedy takes those we know in an unnatural way, our theological understanding of the world becomes unhinged. Yet just when we begin to fear Gods absence, an outpouring of compassion can help pull us through. Not all storms are as large as the Tsunami. As those around us face life's harshest winds and are challenged in seeing God, we can help strengthen their faith simply by showing that we care.