Quake Awake

I remember hearing about earthquakes in California when I was a young girl. I made a promise I would never live in California. We lived in Oklahoma, where we had horrible weather anyway. We have tornadoes, floods—it’s crazy. One season to the next, you can’t tell what time of year you’re in. One day it could be ice and the next day tornadoes in the middle of December.

However, in the last five years, earthquakes have been on the rise in Oklahoma because of fracking, dumping, and disposing water from oil wells into our earth. It is ridiculous. It was as if California came to Oklahoma. In many cases, Oklahoma earthquakes are actually more frequent and stronger than the ones in California.

I hate it. Why do I hate it so much? It’s because the earth is so big. We are so miniscule. We are the size of a speck in comparison. When the earth shakes, it trembles. It’s scary. Fear rises up in you. It is unbelievable what it feels like for the ground to rattle beneath you and shake your home. You don’t know when it is coming. There is no warning; there is no indication. It’s just—boom. There it is. It shows up and throws you out of bed in the middle of the night. Truly, we have no control, and it’s shocking what our response can be.

As people, we like to think we have control over things. We have control over ourselves, our family, maybe our children, maybe our husband, or maybe a friend—people who listen to us. As students, we have control over our homework. We have control over so much—what we do, what we say. But we have no control when the earth shakes beneath our feet.

We have to trust in the God who is in charge. We have to seek Him out. We have to use the authority He has given us in the name of Jesus to tame this earth and bring it into our control. We have to learn our authority in this life so the temporal of this earth will submit to the eternal.

In Jesus’ name, I pray today your eyes would be open, your ears would hear, and you would step into that authority.